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WESTEEN EUEOPE 

IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 
AN AFTERMATH 

BY THE LATE 

E. A. FREEMAN, M.A., Hon. D.C.L. 

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 



LONDON 
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited 
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1904 

All rights reserved 






(:>nSi^ 



OS 



OXFORD : HORACE HART 
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 



PKEFACE 

When the ]ate Mr. E. A. Freeman set forth on his 
last visit to Spain his immediate interest was the 
completion of his History of Sicily. It was known, 
however, by his friends that he had left behind in an 
unfinished state the materials for a volume on Western 
Europe in the Fifth Century. Like many other 
historical students he was much interested in the few 
historical notices that have survived concerning the 
events in Britain during the fifth century. He 
desired to understand them, and as far as possible to 
fit them in with what we know of the general political 
development of Western Europe, and he felt that the 
only way of approaching this subject with any chance 
of permanent success was to make sure of the events 
that had happened in Graul. If we understood clearly 
what had occurred there we were at least in possession 
of information which would keep us from wrong ideas 
as to what might have happened in insular Britain. 
The incidents that are recorded are so brief and 
isolated that, taken by themselves, they fail to give 
us any idea of what was going on, but when we look 
at them in the light created by events in Gaul we 
perceive faint traces of a connexion between them ; 
it is the fading influence of the magic name, res- 
pvMica Bomana, and the efforts that were being 
made, secular and religious, to revive it for the 
salvation of the island. It was then for this purpose 
that he had given as professor two or three courses 
of lectures on this subject, and it is evident from such 



^ Preface 

portions of his manuscript that remain that he had 
set out his work with the view to its publication. 
Some of the chapters he had completed, some were 
still fragmentary, and for each section he had pro- 
vided some notes or indications of notes, and in what 
Avas meant for an appendix he had discussed at 
greater length than was possible in the text one or 
two questions of especial importance. The manu- 
script of these lectures, just as it was found, was 
handed over to his friend, the late Professor York 
Powell, who very kindly undertook to see the volume 
through the press. This, however, he never accom- 
plished, and after his premature death the portions 
which he had worked off, a rough print of the rest, 
and such sheets of the manuscript as could be found, 
were returned to Mr. Freeman's executors. Professor 
York Powell had revised for the press sheets B to P, 
i.e. the first 224 pages. The rest was all in the 
rough, and called for arrangement, correction, and 
the verification of the references, an amount of work 
which his numerous engagements had probably made 
it impossible for him to accomplish. It is obvious, 
therefore, that the present volume suffers very much 
for lack of the author's final notes and arrangement, 
but it was felt that work so good, carried out on 
ground which had never before been so carefully 
considered, should not be allowed to remain un- 
published. It is now offered to the historical student, 
a mere earnest of what it would have been, and yet 
a fragment too valuable to be allowed to perish. 

T. SCOTT HOLMES. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I, The Invasion of Gaul .... 1 

II. A Tyrant of the West .... 35 

III. CONSTANTINE EmPEROR AND MaXIMUS TyRANT 81 

IV. The Barbarian Invaders .... 130 
V. West-Goths and Burgundians . . .171 

VI. Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine . 226 
VII. Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius . 264 
VIII. Chlodowig the Frank 288 

APPENDIX 1. Aetius and Boniface . . .305 
II. The Second Carausius . .371 

INDEX 375 



WESTERN EUROPE IN THE 
FIFTH CENTURY. 



I. 

[THE INVASION OF GAUL.] 

The movements within and without the Empire 
which, in the course of a few years at the beginning 
of the fifth century, altogether changed the face of 
Western Europe have never, as far as I know, been 
told in our own tongue, perhaps not in any other 
tongue, as a connected tale. The facts are recorded 
by Gibbon with his usual accuracy, clearness, and 
careful reference to authorities ; but they are scattered 
over several chapters and are never brought together 
in their relation to one another. To Gibbon, with 
Rome itself as his main subject, their importance lay 
chiefly in their purely Eoman aspect, as so many 
blows dealt to the power of Rome. To our latest 
English inquirer into these times they naturally come 

n the same way, important only as they bear on the 
destinies of Italy and her invaders. Mr. Hodgkin 
does not give, because he was not called upon to 
4ve, a minute or a consecutive narrative any more 

aan Gibbon does. Of the German writers on the 
VolJcerwanderung, Dahn and Pallmann hardly touch 

B 



2 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [i. 

these particular years ; Wietersheim has a careful and 
critical examination of the facts and authorities ; but 
it hardly amounts to a narrative "^^ Of writers dealing 
specially with our own island, Lappenberg has a sketch, 
to the purpose as far as it goes, of the British side of 
the story, but he hardly attempts to connect it with 
the continental side. Mr. Green, in the Making of 
England, attempts no examination of authorities, and 
he gives a few words only to the continental side ; 
but it is clear that he had fully grasped the connexion 
between the two. Tillemont in a past age, Clinton 
in the age just before our own, have brought the 
authorities together with their usual painstaking 
research. And I venture to think that the time 
has not yet come when we can afford to cast 
away collectors whom no scrap of information in the 
original writers ever seems to escape. But Clinton 
does not attempt a narrative, and the narrative which 
the worthy Tillemont does attempt, though it is well 
to follow the example of Gibbon and Hodgkin in 
keeping it ever at our elbow, can hardly be looked 
on as sufficient according to the standard of modern 
criticism. Fauriel, in his Histoire de la Gaule 
Meridionale sous la domination des conquerants 
Germains, has used his authorities well, and he 
comes nearer than any other writer to giving a con- 
nected narrative of the events with which we are 
immediately concerned. Still his point of view, the 
point of /view of a countryman of Sidonius and 
Gregory, is distinctly South-Gaulish. It is no part 

* Dahn has since in his Urgeschichte come much nearer to a con- 
nected story. 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul, 3 

of his business to take any special points to connect 
the continental with the insular story. As for myself, 
I must say that, while I have taken the deepest 
interest in attempting to put together a fuller and 
more connected narrative of the whole story than 
I have yet seen, and in the work which is the 
necessary condition of so doing, the minute examina- 
tion of the evidence of the original writers, I have 
a motive beyond. In much that I shall have to say 
from this Chair, I shall strive to guide you into 
Britain by way of Gaul, into England by way, if not 
of France, yet of the elements out of which France 
slowly grew. If I keep you long with the Goth and 
the Frank in their Gaulish realms, it will not be only 
because of the surpassing interest and instruction of 
their story in their Gaulish realms, but also because 
a full understanding of their position in their Gaulish 
realms is the best means to enable us by force of 
contrast to grasp the true position of the Angle and 
the Saxon in their British realms. I am leading you 
to Northumbrian Bseda by the guidance of Arvernian 
Gregory. If I am set in this Chair to strive to show 
that European history is one unbroken tale, I am set 
in it also to strive to show that Englishmen are 
Englishmen. I believe that the latest theories of all 
go once more to set aside that doctrine as an old 
wives' fable. Now I venture to think that the spritely 
youths who, I am told, blow their trumpet somewhat 
loudly to say that what they are pleased to call * the 
Teutonic theory' is exploded, have not given much 
of their time to any very deep study of Gregory of 
Tours. The plain truth, so despised of many, that 

B 2 



4 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

we are ourselves and not somebody else, is more 
easily grasped if we look first at the fortunes of 
those branches of our race which did not remain 
ourselves but did become somebody else, and see how 
utterly unlike those fortunes are to ours, I trust, 
before many terms are over, to set before you a dis- 
tinctly English story. As yet, I am dealing with 
our kinsfolk in foreign lands. The new theories will 
tell you that we were no more in our conquered island 
than they were in the conquered mainland. It is 
well then, before we examine what was the place 
that the Jute, the Angle, and the Saxon held in 
Britain, to understand thoroughly what was the 
place which the Burgundian, the Goth,, and the Frank 
held in Gaul. 

Of that inquiry the present course will bring us 
only to the threshold ; but it is a stage which cannot 
be left out. The main importance of these years lies 
in this, that in them the ground was made ready for 
the plantation of abiding Teutonic settlements in the 
three great lands of the West, in Gaul, Spain, and 
Britain. In Gaul, and still more in Spain, not only 
is the ground made ready, but the settlements actually 
begin ; in Britain the ground is made ready, but 
hardly more. In our meagre notices of Britain in 
these years Teutonic invaders are never distinctly 
mentioned. They have shown themselves at an 
earlier time as unsuccessful invaders ; they were soon 
to show themselves again as abiding settlers; but 
during the special years with which we are about to 
deal the Teuton shows himself in Britain at most as 
a passing plunderer of the coast; his future dwelling- 



L] The Invasion of Gaul. 5 

place is making ready for him ; but lie does not as 
yet take any steps to secure possession. Yet even 
at this time our own people play no inconsiderable 
part in the story. It is not to be forgotten that 
there was a Saxony in Gaul before there was a Saxony 
in Britain; Bayeux was a Saxon city before Win- 
chester. Among all the invaders of Gaul the Saxon 
pirates of the coast are spoken of as the most dreaded, 
and the rovers of the Channel were not likely to keep 
themselves to its southern shore only, though it is 
only on its southern shore that they have found 
chroniclers of their doings. But beyond this, both 
at this time and in the generation when the Angle 
and the Saxon did begin to occupy the great island, 
it is of the highest moment to mark the connexion 
between the affairs of Britain and the affairs of the 
mainland. The Teutonic conquest of Britain, owing 
to the special circumstances both of the invaders and 
of the land invaded, took a wholly different shape 
from the Teutonic conquest of most parts of the main- 
land. But it was none the less part of the general 
Volherwanderung, and it was largely affected by the 
same causes as the Teutonic movements on the main- 
land. And. one side of the difference between the 
English conquest of Britain and the Frankish conquest 
of Gaul, namely the difference in the state of the 
invaded lands and their inhabitants, was largely owing 
to the events of these particular half-dozen years. 

At a first glance the events of these years may 
seem to offer us little more than a series of uninter- 
esting and almost unintelligible struggles for the 
crown of the declining Empire of Kome, or at any 



6 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

rate for the imperial dominion in the provinces 
beyond the Alps. Emperors or tyrants rise and fall, 
and, by a strange fate, men whose revolt at least 
shows them to have been men of some energy, are 
overthrown to the profit of an Emperor who at no 
time of his reign showed any energy whatever. 
Honorius cannot keep Rome from the barbarians ; 
but he can, by the hands at least of his generals, 
destroy every rival claimant of his diadem and can 
win back a large part of the provinces which they 
had usurped. We may safely say that Constantine, 
Gerontius, Jovinus, Heraclian, were any of them 
better fitted to reign than the son of Theodosius. 
But these men have a higher interest than comes 
from anything that connects them with Honorius. 
Their rise and fall are directly connected with some of 
the leading events in the history of the world ; their 
tale cannot be told without telling the tale of the 
separation of Gaul, Britain, and Spain from the Roman 
dominion ; the setting up and putting down of the 
rival tyrants cannot be recorded apart from the 
revolutions which at least opened the way for the 
growth of the leading nations of Western Europe. 

As usual, the history of these years has to be made 
out by piecing together a great number of authorities, 
none of which are of first-rate merit. We have an 
unusual wealth of accounts, such as they are, written 
by men who lived at the time ; but there is none who 
claims a high place as a narrator, still less is there 
any who could understand the full significance of his 
own days. Nor is there any who gave himself speci- 
ally to remark and to record that particular chain of 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 7 

events with which we are specially concerned. All 
is fragmentary; one fact has to be found here and 
another there. The age, as one of the great turning- 
points of the world's history, needed a Polybios to 
grasp its full meaning ; we have not even an Ammi- 
anus to set down events in order and to make shrewd 
observations on them as he goes along. We can 
hardly doubt that the History of Olympiodoros, the 
Greek of Egypt, some scraps of whose many books 
are preserved to us by Ph6tios, would, if he had come 
down to us whole, have given us something more like 
a narrative, and that a narrative of some merit, than 
his followers. He has at any rate given us fragments 
of considerable importance, whose value has been 
fully set forth by Mr. Hodgkin. We seek in vain for 
some further knowledge and some further remains 
of the two writers quoted by Gregory of Tours, 
Sulpicius Alexander and Henatus Profuturus Frige - 
ridus. The collection of names borne by the last 
writer, with its Christian, its Koman, and its Teutonic 
elements, raises a certain curiosity about himself. 
Sulpicius may have concerned himself chiefly with 
the Franks, a people with whom we have at this 
moment less to do than with some others. From 
Orosius we have the complete work of a contem- 
porary; from Zosimos we have the nearly complete 
work of most probably a younger contemporary. 
Both the zealous Christian and the zealous pagan 
wrote with an object somewhat different from that of 
simply recording events as they happened, and the 
prejudices of both must be allowed for in measuring 
the value of their witness. Z6simos too, though 



8 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

a contemporary, one wlio was alive at tlie time and 
who wrote not very long after, can hardly be called 
an original writer. He seems to have written from 
the accounts of writers, some of whom could not have 
been much earlier than himself, but whom we may 
guess that he did not always understand. Though 
his account of these years seems complete, yet it is 
almost as fragmentary as those of 01ympiod6ros. It 
consists of pieces put together with very little regard 
to connexion or to chronological order, one most 
likely taken from one source and another from another. 
Yet some of the scraps of narrative thus embedded, 
whencesoever they may come, are of the highest 
moment. They preserve several of the most essential 
parts of our present story for which we should look 
in vain elsewhere. We have another narrative, full in 
some points,in the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomenos, 
also a writer contemporary, or nearly so. The writers 
of our own island in after times, British Gildas and 
Nennius, English Baeda, who in some measure follows 
Gildas, and the English Chronicler who in some 
measure follows Baeda, can of course tell us nothing 
of our times beyond such traditions, written or oral, 
as may have lingered on till their days. But it is 
always well to know how the events of a past age 
looked in the eyes of the descendants or successors of 
the men who were touched by them at the time. 

We are now in the age of the Annalists. And two 
of them, as being both contemporary and local, would, 
if they had written at greater length, have been the 
very best of all our authorities. Even as it is, the 
Aquitanian Prosper and the Spanish Idatius count 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 9 

for as much as any of the more lengthy writers, and 
Idatius himself enlarges with some force when he 
comes to the sorrows of his own land. A British or 
an Armorican annalist, an annalist from the banks of 
the Rhine, would have been priceless indeed ; but for 
such we have to yearn in vain. Our nearest approach 
to such a help is found in that annalist on whom 
one side of the description of the Aquitanian annalist 
has so oddly been bestowed, and who commonly 
figures as Prosper Tiro. Whoever he was, and at 
whatever value we rate him in other matters, we 
are thankful for his few and short notices of 
that island world which the world of Eome seems 
largely to have forgotten. Above all, we are thankful 
to him for the one notice from outside, a notice 
seemingly contemporary, which has come down to us 
of the English Conquest of Britain. 

We get some help also from some writers in prose 
and verse whose object was not that of directly and 
simply recording events. We press into our service 
alike the pagan laureate and the Christian preacher. 
The stately hexameters of Claudian, the less famous 
elegiacs of the poet of Divine Providence, the long 
harangue of Salvian, the occasional notices of Jerome, 
all form part of our materials. Actions of Stilicho 
were, if not the true causes, at least the immediate 
occasions, of the events with which we are concerned; 
and where Stilicho acts, we presently hear the 
trumpet voice of the poet from whom we should 
never have learned that the devout Honorius was not 
a worshipper of Jupiter. Our most living picture of 
the invasion of Gaul itself comes from a poet of 



10 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

another kind, whom some have thought to be the 
annalist Prosper in yet another shape. Prosper or 
no Prosper, he is a contemporary witness, whose 
verses may be more safely accepted as true to fact 
than the sounding lines of Claudian. He is a man of 
Gaul who painted the sufferings of Gaul in which he 
himself had shared. His verse is written to point 
a moral, the moral of Divine Providence ; so is the 
prose of Salvian in his treatise of kindred title, where 
he gives his picture of the evils and sorrows of the 
time while discoursing of the government of God. 
We would fain believe that the Teuton was as 
virtuous and the Roman less vicious than the Roman 
preacher paints them; but we must doubtless apply 
the same rule to both, and take off something from 
the brightness of the one portrait and from the 
blackness of the other. Saint Jeiome we have to 
thank for a few fiery touches of the time, for a few 
geographical details, for a slightly puzzling list of 
nations, all which certainly add to our knowledge. 
Altogether our materials are far from scanty; many 
important periods are far worse off. We cannot 
venture to ask for a Polybios at every great turn 
of the world's history. We are inclined to lament 
that we have no such light as Ammianus throws on 
the century that goes before and Procopios on the 
century that follows. 

It is by a sound instinct as to the general march of 
events, though with some disregard to exact chrono- 
logy, that Baeda and the English Chronicler connect 
the separation of Britain from the Roman dominion 
with the Gothic taking of Rome. Rome was broken 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. ii 

by the Goths, and since then no Eoman kings reigned 
over Britain *. It was not the actual taking of 
Kome, but it was that Gothic invasion of Italy of 
which the taking of Eome was the most striking 

* Bseda (i. 11) brings in his first date with some chronological 
solemnity. He had Orosius before him, but he leaves out and 
amplifies to suit his own purpose. His date stands thus ; 

" Anno ab incarnatione Domini quadrigentesimo septimo, tenente 
imperium Honorio Augusto filio Theodosii minore, loco ab Augusto 
quadragesimo quarto, ante biennium Romanse irruptionis quae per 
Alaricum regem Gothorum facta est, cum gentes Alanorum, Sue- 
vorum, Vandalorum, multseque cum his alias, protritis Francis, 
transito Hreno, totas per Gallias ssevirent." 

At the point of time thus marked, first Gratian and then Con- 
stantine are set up ; the history of Constantine follows, and then 

" Fracta est autem Roma a Gothis millesimo centesimo sexagesimo 
quarto suae conditionis, ex quo tempore Romani in Britannia reg- 
nare cesserunt, post annos ferme quadringentos septuaginta ex 
quo Gaius Julius Caesar eamdam insulam adiit." 

The English Chroniclers leave out all the former extract, and 
translate the second under the year 409 (in the late Canterbury 
version, 408). The fullest form is in the Peterborough version ; 

" Her waes tobrocen Romana burh fram Gotum, ymb XI hund 
wintra and X wintra Jjaes j^e eo getimbred waes. SicSSan ofer 
J)aet ne rixodan leng Romana cinigas on Brytene. Ealles hi 
tSaer rixodan IIII hund wintre and hund seofenti wintra sicStSan 
Gaius lulius ]3set land erost gesohte." 

The other versions have several small differences, and the word 
leng is in Peterborough only. And it may be noticed that, while 
Baeda does not imply that the Romans had ruled in the island 
ever since the landing of Gaius Julius, the Chroniclers do. 

Baeda leaves out the actual separation of Britain, as recorded 
by Zosiraos. Coming between the expedition and the taking of 
Rome, it got mixed up with both those events, and was lost 
between them. He also placed, like so many others, the taking 
of Rome in 409 instead of 410. 



12 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 



incident, which led to that general breaking-up of 
the Eoman power in the West, of which the departure 
of the legions from Britain was that side which most 
directly concerned ourselves and our predecessors on 
British soil. As a matter of fact, Britain had really 
fallen away from the dominion of Kome before Eome 
was taken by Alaric. In truth, the actual taking of 
Rome, looked at as something having a practical 
effect on the course of events at the time, was of less 
importance than that it now seems to have or than it 
seemed to have in the eighth and ninth centuries. 
In more senses than one, 

Suis et ipsa Eoma viribus ruit. 
Eome had so thoroughly spread herself over the 
whole of her own world, the whole of that world had 
so thoroughly become Eome, that the direct impor- 
tance of the local Eome had come to be less than that 
of many other cities. Eome was neither a seat of 
government nor the guardian of an exposed frontier. 
Her actual capture and sack was a solemn and terror- 
striking incident, which gave endless opportunities 
for pointing a moral ; it was the sign that an old day 
was passing away and that a new day was coming ; 
it was a thing to be remembered in later days as no 
other event of those times was likely to be remem- 
bered; but at the moment it made little practical 
difference to any but those who immediately suffered 
by it. What really changed the face of Western 
Europe was not that Eome was taken but that Eome 
was threatened. It was the presence of Alaric in 
Italy, a presence of which the taking of Rome was as 
it were the formal witness, which opened the way for 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 13 

the separation of the Western lands from the Empire 
and for the beginning of the powers of the modern 
world. 

Yet, at the moment when our immediate story 
begins, Alaric was not in Italy; he had entered the 
land and he had left it ; he had left it, as Eoman 
poets and official writers loudly proclaimed, a defeated 
man, chief of a people that Eome had crushed for 
ever*. He had entered Italy, it would seem, with 
Kadagaisus, as his ally. Such seems the express 
witness of such authorities as we havef. It may be 
that Alaric and Radagaisus entered Italy by distinct 
paths, and that the warfare of the Eoman armies in 
Ehsetia, which is described as happening at the same 
time as the coming of Alaric, may have been warfare 
directed against another Gothic leader who came in 
alliance with him \. The fight of PoUentia has been 

* The whole poem of Claudian on the sixth Consulship of 
Honorius is an expansion of this theme ; but it comes out most 
tersely in the inscription, if it he genuine, " Getarum nationem in 
omne sevum domitam." Hodgkin, i. 722-7. 

t Prosper distinctly couples Eadagaisus with Alaric ; " Stilichone 
et Aureliano coss. Gothi Italiam, Alarico et Eadagaiso ducihus, in- 
gressi." So Cassiodorus, changing the style to " Halarico et 
Eadagaiso regibus." 

X So Hodgkin, i. 711-33. The words of Claudian, De Bello 
Getico, 279, are; 

" Irrupere Getse, nostras dum Esetia vires 
Occupat, atque alio desudant Marte cohortes." 
This would certainly be more naturally taken of some movement in 
Ehsetia itself, quite distinct from the Gothic invasion. I believe 
there is no other reference to Eadagaisus as a partner of Alaric in 
this invasion. As for Ehsetia, we must not forget another obscure 
reference in Claudian, De Bello Getico, 414 ; 



14 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

variously described as a Eoman victory, a Gothic 
victory, and a drawn battle^'; it is certain that its 
practical effect was favourable to Eome. Alaric left 
Italy, and again, as in the last days of the fourth 
century, the Imperial power was undisputed through- 
out all the lands of the West. 

But that power was no longer what it had been 
even at the beginning of the last year of that century. 
When Stilicho entered on his second final consulship, 
whatever dangers seemed to threaten the dominions 
of the Western Emperor still came from the lands 
which were under the rule of his Eastern brother. 
The Eastern power of Eome, destined to live on 
unbroken for more than eight centuries, had been 
shaken by the coming of the Goth, and had needed 
the help of the West to rid itself for a while of his 
presence and his ravages. The Western division of 
the Empire, destined so soon to break in pieces, still 
seemed to be safely guarded by the arm of its consul. 
A few years before Stilicho had, we are told, restored 
the power of Eome on the Ehenish frontier almost by 

"Accurrit vicina manus quam Eaetia nuper 
Vindelicis auctam spoliis defensa probavit." 
Whatever this refers to, it can hardly be taken of a Gothic 
invasion under Eadagaisus. The question, however, though of 
some importance for the history of Italy, matters little for that of 
Gaul and Britain. 

* The question is discussed by Mr. Hodgkin, i. 722. It concerns 
us very little, as whatever was the military result of Alaric's 
invasion of Italy, it led to the withdrawal of the legions from the 
Rhine. I have followed, with Mr. Hodgkin (i. 734-6), the chronology 
of Pallmann (402 a.d.), which seems based on the sure witness of 
Prosper. 



T.] The Invasion of Gaul. 15 

a look. Drusus and Trajan had been outdone. The 
Suevian and the Alaman obeyed the laws of Eome. 
The Frankish kings, with their long yellow hair as 
the badge of freedom and kingship, were set up and 
put down at Stilicho's bidding, and Francia — we 
long for a definition of its boundaries — would no 
more dream of casting forth the kings that Stilicho 
gave than Frovincia — ^we are almost tempted to use 
the later form of the name — would dream of casting 
out the immediate lieutenants of the Emperor. The 
Salian had betaken himself to the tilth of the ground ; 
the Sicambrian had beaten his sword into a pruning- 
hook ; the traveller crossed the border-stream or sailed 
along its waters, and asked which shore of Khine 
was that which Eome specially claimed as her own. 
Britain, delivered and guarded — waUed in, we are 
tempted to render it — at the word of the conqueror, 
had seen the Scot driven back to his own island ; 
she no longer feared the Pict, nor looked with dread 
lest every wind should bring the keels of the Saxon 
to her shores ''^ We wish that we had some further 

* Claudian's poem on the First Coosulship of Stilicho seems to 
be our only authority for these exploits. He specially enlarges on 
the speed of his patron's victories (i. 188-97) ; 

" Miramur rabidis hostem succumbere bellis 
Cum solo terrore ruant? Num classica Francis 
Intulimus ] Jacuere tamen. N'um Marte Suevos 
Contudimus, quis jura damus ? Quis credere possit ? 
Ante tubam nobis audax Germania servit. 
Cedant, Druse, tui, cedant, Trajane, labores. 
Vestra manus dubio quidquid discrimine gessit, 
Transcurrens egit Stilichon ; totidemque diehus 
Edomuit Rhenum, quot vos potuiatis in annis ; 
Qv£m ferro alloquiis, quern vos cum milite, solus." 



16 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

authority for this glowing picture than the laureate 
strains in which Claudian welcomed his patron's con- 
sulship ; but all cannot be imagination. Ten years 

Again (i. 218); 

" Tempore tarn parvo tot prselia sanguine nullo 
Perficis ; et Luna nuper nascente profectus 
Ante redis quam plena fuit." 
The Franks especially are subdued and subdued for ever (i. 203); 
" Ingentia quondam 
Nomina, crinigero Jlaventes vertice reges, 
Qui nee principibus, donis precibusque vocati, 
Paruerant, jussi properant, segnique verentur 
Oflfendisse mora." 

(i. 236.) " Provincia missos 
Expellet citius, fallax quam Francia reges 
Quos dederis. Acie nee jam pulsare rebelles 
Sed vinclis punire licet." 

(i. 220.) " Rhenumque minacem 
Cornibus infractis adeo mitescere cogis 
Ut Salius jam rura colat, flexosque Sygambrus 
In falcem curvet gladios, geminasque viator 
Cum videat ripas, quce sit Romana requiret." 
One longs for some otber account, even the driest entry in the 
Annals. Taken literally, the poet's words imply that Stilicho 
brought the Franks and other nations to submit, without striking 
a blow and even without the presence of an army. The account of 
Stilicho's doings in Britain is even vaguer (ii. 247); 

" Inde Caledonio velata Britannia monstro, 
Ferro picta genis, cujus vestigia verrit 
Cserulus, Oceanique sestum mentitur, amictus; 
Me quoque vicinis i)ereuntem gentibus, inquit, 
Munivit Stilichon, totam cum Scotus lernen 
Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. 
Illius eflfectum curis ne tela timerem 

Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne littore toto S[^ 

Prosjpicerem duhiis venturum Saxona ventis." 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 17 

or more of quiet in Britain and on the German 
frontier seem to show that the successes of Stilicho 
in the first years of the two brothers, however they 
may have been tricked out by the poet's fancy, were 
real successes which did their work for a season. His 
Frankish successes especially seem to have been of 
real importance and to have had an effect on the 
events with which we are more immediately con- 
cerned. The Franks on the left bank of the Ehine, 
those who were settled within the borders of the 
Empire as its subjects, though sometimes turbulent 
subjects, the Salians presently to be so famous, appear 
in our story as discharging the duty of Eoman allies. 
But that such successes as those of Stilicho were 
needed to keep the professed subjects of the Empire, 
in their allegiance is the surest sign of the growing 
weakness of the Eoman power in the Western lands. 
It might be at any moment restored to its full 
geographical extent and to the outward form of its 
ancient authority. But the fabric of dominion needed 
constant propping, not to say rebuilding, and a time 
came when rebuilding was no longer possible. Before 
the fourth century was ended, before the year was 
ended to which Stilicho gave his name, Alaric was in 
Italy, and to withstand the presence of Alaric in 
Italy, the mainstay of the Eoman power in the 
Western lands out of Italy was taken sway. Whether 
Alaric won or lost the field of Pollentia, his coming 
indirectly tore away Britain from the Eoman dominion, 
and began the work of dismemberment in Gaul and 
Spain. 

For the Gothic invasion of Italy needed to be with- 

c 



18 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i, 

stood with all the forces that the declining power 
of Kome could muster. If Pollentia was a Eoman 
victory, it was a victory that was won only by 
leaving the distant frontiers of Rome exposed to 
every invader. To meet Alaric came not only the 
troops which had lately defended Rheetia''^, but the 
troops that guarded the most distant outposts of 
Rome. The Rhine was left without its defenders ; 
the men who had kept watch against Chatti and 
Cherusci and the yellow Sicambri f — in these last at 
least we see the Ripuarian Franks — came to the 
defence of Italy ; so did even the legion which had 
guarded Roman Britain against the Pict and the 
Scot J. We are bidden to believe that, even when 
the legions were gone, the dread of the name of 
Stilicho was so great that it was enough to guard all 
these frontiers without material help. The over- 
throw of Alaric struck such fear into all hearts 
that no subject dared to revolt, no enemy to invade ; 
even proud Germany remained at peace, and did not 
risk the passage of the border-stream, although no 

* See above, p. 13, note %. 

t De Bello Getico, 420; 

"Quseque domant Chattos immansuetosque Cheruscos, 
Hue omnes vertere minas, tutumque remotis 
Excubiis Rhenum solo terrore relinquunt." 

X lb. 416; 

"Venit et extremis legio prsetenta Britannis, 
Quae Scoto dat fraena truci, ferroque notatas 
Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras." 
As to the particular legion referred to, sixth or twentieth, see 
Hodgkin, i. 716. 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 19 

soldier guarded its Roman bank *. And yet this 
daring flight of panegyric seems to have some ground 
of fact to start from. When Claudian wrote, things 
may well have been quiet on the German border ; 
for they seem to have remained so for more than 
two years longer. We have no record of any 
movements on the Ehine till the date, so minutely 
given, when, on the last day of the year 406 f, the 
great Teutonic invasion of Gaul began. It was an 
invasion, not an occupation. Those who now crossed 
the Ehine found no settled dwelling-place till they 
had crossed the Pyrenees as well. It was Spain, not 
Gaul, which the actual invaders of the moment tore 
away from the Empire. To Gaul the actual invasion 
was a frightful blow ; but, had nothing more come 
of it, it would have been only a passing blow. It 
was the working of this great movement on lands 

* De Bello Getico, 423 ; 

"Ullane posteritas credet? Germania quondam 
Ilia ferox populis, quae vix instantibus olim 
Principibus tota poterat cum mole teneri, 
Tarn sese placidse praestat Stilichonis habenis, 
Ut nee praesidiis nudato limine tentet 
Expositum calcare solum, nee transeat amnem, 
Ineustoditam metuens attingere ripam." 
He goes on with a comparison between Stilicho and Camillus 
his only equal ; 

"Vestris namque armis Alarici fracta quievit 
Et Brenni rabies." 
t Prosper Aq. ; "Arcadio VI et Probo Coss. Vandali et Alani, 
trajecto Eheno, Gallias pridie kal. Januarias ingressi." Clinton 
would read " Jun." for " Jan." placing it in the summer instead 
of in the winter. 

C 2 



20 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

beyond the bounds of Gaul which caused it to have 
any lasting effect on the state of Gaul itself. 

Our best authority speaks only of Vandals and 
Alans as having taken part in the invasion. Yet 
there can be no doubt that those other writers are 
quite correct who add the name of the Suevians to 
the list*. These three nations, Vandals, Alans, and 
Suevians, are those which we find a few years later 
establishing kingdoms in Spain. And of those we 
must remark that two only are strictly Teutonic 
nations. The Alans, though their history is so much 
mixed up with that of various branches of the Teu- 
tonic race, and though we may believe that they had 
become in some measure Teutonized, were in them- 
selves barbarians in the strictest sense of the word, 
aliens to Teutonic as well as to Eoman fellowship. 
Their invasion would of itself, under other circum- 
stances, have belono-ed to the same class as the later 
invasions of the Hun, the Avar, and the Magyar. 

* The chief of these is Orosius (vii. 39), whose account we shall 
have to examine presently. His list is " Gentes Halanorum et, ut dixi, 
Suevorum, muUceque cum his alice." So Zosimos (vi. 3), who tells 
the story rather out of place, to explain the causes of the move- 
ment in Britain which followed the invasion of Gaul, but which he 
tells before it. His words are iv rois irpoXa^oixn xpovois, eicrov rjbri 
TrjV vnaTov exovros 'ApKabiov Koi Upo^ov, BavbiXoi 2vr}0o7s Koi 'AXavols 
eavTovs avafii^avres tovtovs virep^avres tovs totvovs rois vnep "AXirecriv 
edvfo-iv fXvpTjvavTo. The Vandals are here made the kernel of the 
invasion, as they are also by Salvianus (Gub. D. vii. 12), who, in 
describing the Vandals, tells us how " excitata est in perniciem et 
dedecus nostrum gens ignavissima (cf. Livy, iii. 67 ; v. 28), quae de 
loco ad locum pergens, de urbe in urbem transiens, universa 
vastaret." 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 21 

As it is, their migration is part of the Teutonic 
migration, a strange side of it, but one which we 
cannot separate from the other sides. It is an 
application on a great scale of the universal law that 
a great national migration always carries with it 
some who do not belong to the main stock of the 
invaders, but who are from some cause led to throw 
in their lot with them. In this way it may be per- 
fectly true, as we may be led to gather from the words 
of an ecclesiastical writer, that a crowd of other nations, 
Teutonic, Slavonic, Heruli, Gepidae, Sarmatians, 
Quadi, and many others *, had a share of some kind 
in the work. Detached bands of any of these nations 
or any others may have followed the lead of any of 
the chiefs of the movement. But, if so, they were 
lost in the general mass ; it was the three nations 
already spoken of. Vandals, Alans, and Suevians, that 
gave the movement its character ; it is these three 
that are distinctly visible in the story and in its 
results ; it is these three that made Gaul a highway 
to Spain, and that found in Spain an abiding place 
for a longer or shorter season. 

* Jerome in his letter (xcii. vol. iv. p. 748) to Agerucliia, gives 
his list ; " Innumerabiles et ferocissimse nationes universas Gallias 
occuparunt. Quidquid inter Alpes et Pyrenseum est, quod Oceano 
et Eheno includitur, Quadus, Wandalus, Sarmata, Halani, Gepi- 
des, Heruli, Burgundiones, Alemani, et, O lugenda respublica, 
Pannonii hostes vastarunt." The list reads very like a fancy one ; 
but there must be some special force in this mention of Pannonian 
enemies. Who are meant % The Huns % 

Fauriel (i. 39) seems to put the Gepidse of Jerome's list in the 
place which is held by the Suevians in most versions. In i. 42 
he seems puzzled at hearing so little about them. 



22 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 



As to the immediate occasion of the movement 
we are in the dark. It is hardly possible to reconcile 
the language of our authorities with the view that 
the Teutonic invaders of Gaul in this year were the 
remnants of the host with which the mysterious 
and terrible Eadagaisus, whether he had any share 
in the earlier invasion of Italy or not, certainly led 
into Italy the year before *. But whoever were the 
followers of Eadagaisus, it seems plain that they 
were utterly cut off in Italy by the generalship of 
Stilicho f. And all our accounts speak of the in- 

* This was the view of Gibbon and of the earlier writers to 
whom he refers. It does not seem to be adopted by any modern 
scholar (see Hodgkin, i. [733, 739, 824]), and it certainly is not 
suggested by the language of Prosper and the other writers. 
Gibbon rests on the phrase of Orosius, that the invading nations 
were stirred up by Stilicho. See note below on Orosius' charge. 

+ Orosius heads his chapter (vii. 37) with the heading, " Ea- 
dagaisus hostis Italiam intravit et coesus est cum gente sua." And 
all his expressions are to the same effect ; " Eadagaisus solus . . . 
suos deseruit." The rest were worn out with hunger or taken 
prisoners. So Zosimos, vi. 26 ; uTrav to irokeynov navwXedpia di.e(f>- 
Bfiptv [6 ^TiXixcov] SxTTe fxrjbeva ax^^°^ ^'^ tovtchv TTepiarudrjvai, itXtiv eXa;^i(T- 
Tovs o(Tovs airos tji 'Pcopaicov irpoaedjjKe avp-fiaxi-a. One may be sure 
that there is exaggeration in all this ; but such phrases seem quite 
inconsistent with the notion that the Suevians, Vandals, and 
Alans who crossed the Ehine under their own kings were the 
remnant of this defeated host. 

The " luminous passage of Pi'osper's Chronicle," " In tres partes, 
per divisos principes, divisus [Eatlagaisi] exercitus," is not from 
the true Prosper, but from the chronicle so oddly called that of 
Prosper Tiro (see Hodgkin, i. 702-9 [founding himself on 
Holder-Egger, Neu. Arch. 1876]), and it goes on: "aliquam re- 
pugnandi Eomanis aperuit facultatem. Insigni triumpho exercitum 
tertise partis hostium, circumactis Hunnorum auxiliaribus Stilico 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 23 

vaders of Gaul in this year as nations, nations crossing 
the Rhine by a fresh movement, not at all as the 
remnants of a defeated army. That the invasion 
was planned in concert with Badagaisus — if so, most 
likely in concert with Alaric — is perfectly possible * ; 
but it seems easier to suppose that the nations 
beyond the Rhine simply took advantage of the 
withdrawal of the legions which followed on Alaric's 
invasion of Italy. In any case the coming of these 
armed nations was not unexpected. Honorius, or 
those who were so busy at the work of legislation 
in his name, put forth more than one decree in which 
an attempt was made to provide for the defence of 
the provinces. But we hear nothing of any move- 
ments of the legions to the threatened frontier. We 
find instead, a touching appeal to the lovers of their 
country, the lovers of peace, to stand forth each man 
as his zeal and courage called him, and to do each 
man his duty in this hour of utmost need. The 
slaves, too, were called on to help ; in such a strait as 
the land was in it mattered more what a man could 
do than what was his state of life ; the slaves of the 
foreigners in the Boman service, and of those who 

usque ad internecionem delevit." It is hard to say what amount 
of value we should yield to this statement. Its exactness certainly 
looks as if it rested on some authority; yet it is hard to infer 
with Gibbon (Cap. xxx, note 4) that the "luminous passage" connects 
the history of Italy, Gaul, and Germany. The chronicler puts 
the invasion of Gaul two years later as a wholly distinct event. 

* So Faurielj i. 40. But the passage in Procopius, Bell. Vand. 
i. 3 (on which see note below), does not seem to bear on the matter. 
In the other passage which he refers to Jordanes, 31, the Vandals 
and Alans go into Gaul " ob metum Gottorum." 



24 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. ' 

were actually under arms, were specially bidden to 
go and fight by the side of their masters. The 
freeman was promised pay and part of that pay in 
advance ; the slave was promised a lesser pay, but 
accompanied by the precious gift of freedom *. Such 
an appeal from an Emperor who certainly had no 
thought of joining the muster sets us a-thinking ; 

* Clinton pointed out that some of the laws of Honorius, which 
had been thought to refer to the invasion of Italy by Radagaisus, 
really refer to the invasion of Gaul. They are dated in the 
consulship of Arcadius and Probus, that is 406. That which calls 
on the slaves is, what we should hardly have looked for, a little 
earlier than that which calls upon the freemen. Its date is 
Ravenna, xv. Kal. Mai., and it runs thus ; " Contra hostiles impetus 
non solas jubemus personas considerari, sed vires, et licet ingenuos 
araore patriae credamus incitari, servos etiam hujus auctoritate 
edicti exhortamus ut cum primum se bellicis sudoribus ofierant, 
prsemium libertatis, si apti ad militiam arma susceperint, pulveratici 
etiam nomine binos solidos acceptari : prsecipue sane eorum servos 
quos militia armata detentat, foederatorum nihilominus et dediti- 
ciorum, quoniam ipsos quoque una cum dominis constat bella 
tractare" (viii. Cod. Theod. Tit. xiii. De Tironibus, p. 387). 
Gothofred has a note on pulveraticv/ni, which here at least means the 
pay — earned by services amid the dust of warfare — which was to 
be the reward of the slave who turned a soldier. The other law 
(p. 388) is dated from Eavenna two days later ; " Provinciales pro 
imminentibus necessitatibus omnes invitamus edicto quos exigit ad 
militiam innata libertas. Ingenui igitur qui militise obtentu arma 
capiunt amore pacis et patrige, sciant se denos solidos paratis rebus 
de nostro percepturos serario, quibus tamen ternos ex summa 
supradicta jam nunc solidos prsebere mandabimus; nam optimos 
futures confidimus, quos virtus et utilitas publica necessitatibus 
obtulit." 

We are not told whether the owners of the liberated slaves were 
to be paid their value, which would seem to be only recoverable in 
the case of masters who were themselves under arms. 



T.] The Invasion of Gaul. 25 

among things we notice that the meaning of the 
word country — fatria — has widened a good deal since 
a prince who moved from Rome to Capri was held to 
have forsaken his country "'^ The Roman name, now 
shared by all free inhabitants of the Empire, was held 
to have created a country and a nationality which, 
artificial as they might be, were deemed, at least 
officially, to be capable of calling up the feeling of 
patriotism in men's hearts. 

The barbarians then were making ready for the 
great migration, and the Romans were at least called 
upon to make ready to withstand them. But are we 
to believe that he who before all men united both 
characters, the greatest of living warriors, barbarian 
by descent, but beyond all men Roman by calling, 
had stirred up the nations which now poured into 
the Empire which he had twice saved % At least one 
contemporary writer tells us, and at least one later 
writer copies his tale, that the invaders of Gaul were 
led thither by the invitation of Stilicho f. He hoped, 

* Tacitus. 

+ Orosius (vii. 38) after some other hard words against Stilicho, 
charging him among other things with sparing the Goths, goes 
on ; ' Prseterea gentes alias copiis viribusque intolerabiles, quibus 
nunc Galliarum Hispaniarumque provincise premuntur ; hoc est 
Halanorum, Suevorum, Wandalorumque, ipsoque simul motu 
impulsos Burgundionum ultro in arma soUicitans deterso semel 
Eomani nominis metu suscitavit." And in a following chapter 
(vii. 40) we read ; "Ante biennium Eomanse irruptionis [the taking 
of Eome by Alaric] excitatae per Stiliconem gentes, Halanorum, ut 
dixi, Suevorum, Wandalorum, multseque cum his alias, Francos 
proterunt, Ehenum transeunt, Gallias invadunt, directoque impetu 
Pyrenseum usque perveniunt, cujus obice ad tempus repulsse per 



26 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

we are told, that by raising a storm which he trusted 
to quell, but which none other could, he might be able 
to transfer the Empire from his son-in-law to his 
son*. The tale is the statement of an enemy, but, 

circumjacentes provincias refunduntur." Gibbon (c. xxx. note 46) 
on the phrase " excitatse a Stilichone gentes," says, " They must 
mean indirectly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul," By 
a somewhat forced construction this meaning might be put on the 
second passage of Orosius ; but the first distinctly asserts direct 
dealings with the invaders on the part of Stilicho. 

Of the Burgundians mentioned by Orosius we shall have to 
speak again. 

To the same effect is the chronicle called Prosper Tiro ; " xvii 
[Arcedii et Honorii]; Diversarum gentium rabies Gallias dila- 
cerare exorsa, immissa quam maxime Stiliconis indigne ferentis 
filio suo regnum negatum." It is not till three years later that he 
mentions the three nations spoken of by Orosius. 

The bitterest enemy of Stilicho is the poet Kutilius Namatianus ; 
but his verses (ii. 41 et seqq.) speak rather of Stilicho as letting 
the Goths into Italy than as doing anything with regard to Gaul. 
He tells us how Stilicho 

" Immisit Latise barbara tela neci : 
Visceribus nudis armatum condidit hostem, 

Illato cladis liberiore dolo. 
Ipse satellitibus pellitis Roma patebat 

Et captiva prius quam caperetur erat : 
Nee tantum Geticis grassatur proditer armis ; 
Ante Sibyllinae fata cremavit opis." 
Sdzomen (viii, 25 ; ix. 4) refers to the charges of treason against 
Stilicho, but does not speak of this particular charge, unless it lurks 
in the description of him as -navras ws il-niiv ^ap^dpovs re Koi 'Pdfiaiovs 
TTfidonevovs ex(ov. Nor has Philostorgius (xi. 3 ; xii. 1), though 
seemingly hostile to Stilicho, anything about Gaul. 

See also Dahn, K'dnige der Germanen, v. 42 ; Wietersheim, ii. 138. 

* The words of Orosius (vii. 38) are ; " Sperans miser sub 

hac necessitatis circumstantia, quia et extorquere imperium genero 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 27 

even as the statement of an enemy, it is strange. 
Yet we can hardly doubt as to disbelieving it. It is 
not a statement of visible facts : it is a surmise or 
a mere invention, such as we are used to in all ae^es. 
In the eyes of Stilicho's enemies, any mischief that 
happened was necessarily Stilicho's work. 

In any case Stilicho and his legions did not this 
time fly to the defence of the Gaulish border; nor 
do we hear to what extent either the patriotic youth 
of Gaul or the able-bodied slaves of the barbarian 
mercenaries took up arms at their distant Emperor's 
bidding, to defend the peace of their country. Such 
fighting as was done seems to have been the work 
of defenders of the Empire of another kind. For 
Vandals, Alans, and Suevians at least did not enter 
the Gaulish provinces without finding an enemy to 
withstand them. Something was done in the way 
of diplomacy or bribery. One Alan leader, Goar 
by name, was persuaded to forsake the hostile enter- 
posset in filium, et gentes barbarse tam facile comprimi quam 
coramoveri valerent. Itaque ubi imperatori Honorio exercituique 
Eomano bsec tantorum scelerum scena patefacta est, commoto 
justissimo exercitu occisus est Stilico, qui, ut unum puerum 
purpura indueret, totius generis humani sanguinem dedit." 
Orosius bas a suspicious knowledge of the inner workings of 
Stilicho's mind, for which he is not so good a witness as he is for 
the crossing of the Rhine. 

The oddest thing of all is the confusion of Gregory of Tours 
(ii. 9), who misreads the second reference of Orosius into a campaign 
of Stilicho at the head of the barbarians ; " Horosius autem et ipse 
historiographus in septimo operis sui libro ita commemorat, Stilicho, 
congregatis gentibus, Francos proterit, Ehenum transit, Gallias 
pervagatur, et ad Pyrenseum usque perlabitur." 



28 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 



prise, and to enter the service or alliance of Kome. 
And if the Komans of Gaul failed in their duty, 
the allies of Kome on the Gaulish border at the 
present stage of affairs did theirs manfully. The 
Franks, that is clearly the Kipuarian Franks on the 
right bank of the Khine, met the Vandals in battle. 
The Vandal king Godegisl and twenty thousand of 
his warriors were slain ; the whole Vandal host 
would have been cut to pieces if the Alan king 
Eespendial had not come to its help *. The Franks 
were overthrown by their joint forces, and the invaders 
seem to have met with no further resistance in 
passing the border stream or in spreading themselves 
where they would over the whole land. The districts 
first to be harried were naturally the lands which^ 
under Eoman dominion, still bore the German name f , 

* This comes from one of tlie lost writers who were made use 
of hy Gregory of Tours (ii. 9), him who bears the names of Eenatus 
Profuturus Frigeridus, which there, as Gibbon (c. xxx. note 28) re- 
marks, " denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a semi-barbarian." 
" Interea Eespendial rex Alamannorum, Goare ad Eomanos trans- 
gresso, de Eheno agmen suorum convertit, Wandalis Francorum 
bello laborantibus, Godigyselo rege absumpto, acie vigenti ferme 
minibus ferro peremptis, cunctis Wandalorum ad internitionem 
delendis, nisi Alamannorum vis in tempore subvenisset." Wieter- 
sheim (ii. 158) is of course right in reading "Alanorum" for 
" Alamannorum." The mistake is more likely to be due to Gregory 
than to Eenatus. 

This is the explanation of the two words of Orosius, " Francos 
proterunt." Of Goar we shall hear again. 

Wietersheim points out the error of Procopius (Bell. Vad. i. 3) 
in making Godegisl lead the Vandals into Spain ; " Doch ist dieser 
Schriftsteller iiber Fiihereres anzuverlassig." 

t Salvianus, De Gal. vii. 12 ; "Primam a solo patrio effusa est 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 29 

and whicli by that name might seem almost to invite 
the kindred invader. Thence they passed into the 
specially Belgian land, the Franks, it would seem, 
no longer withstanding them. Thence they passed 
into the flourishing land of Aquitaine, and step by 
step spread themselves over the whole of Gaul, 
through which they marched and harried as they 
thought good by the space of three years. Of the 
sufferings of the land we have more than one vivid 
picture from contemporary hands. Not the castles 
perched on the rocks, not the towns crowning the 
lofty hills, not the cities girded by their rivers — the 
poet of Divine Providence knew well how to hit off 
the characteristic features of Gaulish sites — could 
withstand the craft and the arms of the barbarians *. 
The head of all, the Imperial dwelling of Constantine 
and Yalentinian, Augusta of the Treveri, shorn now 
in common speech of its Imperial style, now under- 
went one of the many sieges and storms that it 
suffered in that age. All the usual horrors of a sack, 
fire and sword and leading into captivity, fell on the 

in Germaniam primam, nomine barbaram, ditione Romanam ; post 
cujus primum exitium arsit regio Belgarum, deinde opes Aquita- 
norum luxuriantiam, at post hsec corpus omne Galliarum, sed 
pauUatim id ipsum tamen, ut dum pars clade cseditur, pars exemplo 
emendaretur." He is here speaking of the Vandals. The words in 
italics seem quite inconsistent with the notion that these Vandals 
had formed part of the host of Radagaisus. 
* Carmen de Divina Providentia, 35 ; 

"Non castella petris, non oppida montibus altis 
Imposita, aut urbes amnibus sequoreis, 
Barbarici superare dolos atque arma furoris 
Evaluere omnes : ultima pertulimus." 



30 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

devoted city. The streets ran with blood and were 
heaped with dead bodies ; the buildings were black- 
ened with the flames. We are even told, in the 
usual style of exaggeration, that the whole city was 
burned. For it is certain that Trier was not left 
desolate without an inhabitant. It still remained 
a city ; and, when the storm had passed by, the first 
thought of its citizens, of the nobles who seem to 
have escaped the sack, was to send their prayer 
to the Emperors that the games of the circus might 
begin once more among them*. We are not told 
by which of the nations that shared in the invasion 
this present overthrow of Trier was wrought ; nor 
is any such distinction observed in the case of any 
of the other towns that are specially named. Mainz, 
Moguntiacum, was stormed and thousands of its 
people were slain, in the great church f . Venerable 

* Salvianus, vi. 15; " Excisa ter continuatis eversionibus 
summa urbe Gallorum, cum omnis civitas combusta est. . . . 
Exciclio unius urbi adfligebantur quoque alise civitates." The 
hon'ors are painted in full. Then we read; "Pauci nobiles qui 
excidio superfuerant, quasi pro summo deletse urbis remedio 
circenses ab imperatoribus postulabant." They are then soundly 
rebuked. 

The phrase "ab imperatoribus" would seem to point to the 
lawful Emperors, Honorius and his colleague, rather than to 
Constantine or to any other of the tyrants. If so, the petition can 
hardly have been made for some years, when things may have 
mended a little. It might be in 409, when Honorius acknow- 
ledged Constantine as a colleague. Salvian clearly exaggerates in 
his description. Trier was certainly not utterly destroyed, as is 
witnessed by the buildings earlier than this time, the basilica and 
parts of the metropolitan church among them, which still remain. 

t Jerome ad Ageruchiam, xci. s. a. 748 ; " Maguntiacum nobilis 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul, 31 

as the present representative of that church is, it 
does not, like the great church of Trier, itself survive 
as a witness of those awful times. Vangiones, Worms, 
fell after a long siege ; we might even infer that for 
a while the city ceased to exist. Rheims, Amiens, 
Arras — the tribal name had already supplanted the 
name of the city — Nemetae and Argentoratum, cities 
to be more famous under their later names of Speyer 
and Strassburg, suffered the same havoc as Trier and 
Mainz. The Morini, most distant of mankind, did 
not escape in their home at Terouanne. Of the 
towns of northern Gaul no other, save Tournay, is 
named ; but the like havoc went on through the whole 
country. None escaped save a few of the towns of 
the Lyonnese and Narbonnese provinces, of Aquitaine 
and of Novempopulania, the later Gascony, One city 
alone of the south is specially mentioned ; Toulouse 
was in some way spared yet greater sufferings by 
its bishop Exsuperius, but the griefs which the city 
did undergo brought tears to the eyes of those who 
heard of them *. Heathens and heretics cared nought 

quondam civitas capta atque subversa est, et in ecclesia multa 
hominum millia trucidata." He does not speak of Trier. 

* lb. *' Vangiones longa obsidione deleti. Eemorum urbs 
prgepotens, Ambiani, Atrabatse, extremique bominum Morini, 
Tornacum, Nemetse, Argentoratum, translati in Germaniam. Aqui- 
tanise, Novemque Populorum, Lugdunensis et Narbonensis pro- 
vincise, prseter paucas urbes populata sunt cuncta. . . . Non 
possum absque lacrimis Tolosse facere mentionem, quae ut hucusque 
non fueret sancti episcopi Exsuperii merita prsestiterunt." In bis 
next letter to Julian, Jerome describes bis correspondent's losses 
and sufferings tbrougb an incursion of barbarians whicb seems to 
be tbe same. 



32 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [i. 

for sacred places, kings and persons, for the hallowed 
church and its vessels, for the devout widow, for the 
consecrated virgin, for the hermit who had withdrawn 
from the world to serve God in his solitary cave. 
Barbarians, we are told, cared not for age or sex ; 
they slew the innocent children with no more mercy 
than those whose death might be the just punishment 
for the sins of a longer life■^^ Those who escaped 
the sword escaped it only to pass into bondage. The 
sujfiferings of the clergy are told by one of their own 
body. They were scourged with whips, branded, 
loaded with chains. The poet himself had to march 
under the rod along the hard and dusty road among 
the wagons and weapons of the barbarians, while his 
aged bishop, torn from his burned city, led his people 
like the banished shepherd of a flock of wounded 
sheep f. As usual one plague followed on another ; 

* Carmen de Provideritia, 41 ; 

" Majores aniii ne forte et nequior setas 
Offenso tulerint quse meruere Deo : 
Quid pueri insontes, quid commisere puellse 
Nulla quibus dederat crimina vita brevis % 
Quare templa Dei licuit popularier igni ? 

Cur violata sacri vasa ministerii ? 
Non honor innuptas devotee virginitatis, 

Non texit viduas relligionis amor. 
Ipsi desertis qui vitam ducere in antris 

Luerant, laudantes nocte dieque Deum, 
Non aliam subiere necem quam quisque profanus ; 
Idem turbo bonos sustulit atque malos." 
t lb. 53 ; 

" Nulla sacerdotes reverentia nominis almi 
Diseruit miseri suppliciis populi ; 



I.] The Invasion of Gaul. 33 

if leading into captivity was the fate of those whom 
the sword spared, the sharp hunger came in the end 
to slay them who escaped leading into captivity *. 
Three years of havoc like this wasted the land. No 
help could come for Kome or Eavenna. The some- 
thing which professed to be help came from another 
quarter, though in truth the help rather took the 
shape of adding the curse of civil war to the curse of 
barbarian invasion. 

The troops that still kept Britain for Eome passed 
over into Gaul. Britain was lost ; we can hardly 
say that Gaul was saved. The barbarians presently 
passed on to ravage another Roman land, and so 

Sic duris csesi flagris, sic igne perusti, 

Inclusse vinclis sic gemuere manus. 
Tu quoque pulvereus plaustra inter et arce Getaium 

Carpebas duram hoc sine fasce viam, 
Cum sacer ille senex plebem usta pulsus ab urbe, 
Cum pastor laceras duceret exsuisfeves." 
" Tu" seems to be the poet himself. He had said ; 
" Heu csede decenni 
Vandalicis gladiis sternimur et Geticis." 
The ten years would count from the invasion in 406 to the peace 
and restoration of Placidia in 416. It is possible therefore that 
the description of himself and his bishop may belong to a later 
time than 406-7, and that " Getse " should be taken in the strict 
sense of " Goths." Yet the picture would seem to refer to an 
incursion of altogether untamed barbarians rather than to the move- 
ments of the comparatively civilized West-Goths. 

* Jerome, u. s. " Quas [urbes] ut ipsas foris gladius intus vastat 
fames." One thinks of the picture drawn in our own tongue 
(Chron. 1086), " Da ]?a wreccse men laegen fordrifene full neah to 
deatSe, and sicScSan com se scearpa hunger and adyde hi mid 
ealle." 

D 



34 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 



much of Gaul as clave to the Eoman name was left 
to be torn in pieces by adventurer after adventurer 
who rose up to take his chance of winning the rule 
of Gaul or, if his luck carried him so far, the rule of 
tlie whole Western World. 



11. 

[A TYRANT OF THE WEST.] 

We have thus far seen the more part of Gaul 
harried by invaders, both Teutonic and otherwise, 
from beyond the Ehine. From the sufferings of 
another land, from the doings, partly of strangers, 
partly of more distant kinsfolk, we must turn for 
a moment to look at the doings of our own people, 
we must turn for a somewhat longer time to look at 
the fates of the land which the doings of our own 
people were before long to make our own land. One 
annalist of this time, not to be sure the one highest 
in authority, but the one who seems to have kept his 
eye most steadily fixed on the matters which most 
immediately concern ourselves, speaks of Gaul at 
this time as a land ravaged, not only by Vandals and 
Alans, but also by Saxons *. Now fully to under- 

* The Pseudo-Pro sper, or whatever we are to call him, has 
under the sixteenth year of Honorius (409) this entry ; " Saxonum 
incursione devastatam Galliarum partem Wanali atque Alani 
vastavere ; quod reliquum fuerat Constantinus tyrannus obsidet." 
The entry is odd ; he had mentioned (see above, note, p. 26) the 
invasion of 406 in its right place, but without the mention of 
Vandals, Alans, or any nations by name. And one does not see 
why he specially places the harrying of Gaul by Vandals and 
Alans in the year in which they left Gaul. Still he could hardly 
have imagined a Saxon inroad, if none had taken place ; and he 

P 2 



36 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

stand the course of things in the fifth century, it is 
ever needful to bear in mind that the events which 
led to the settlement of Angles and Saxons in the 
isle of Britain, and thereby to the growth of the 
Enolish nation in that isle, do not stand alone. Thev 
form part, we should never forget, no less than the 
settlements of Burgundians, Franks, and Goths, of 
the great tale of the Wandering of the Nations. But 
the story of the Angles and Saxons differs widely in 
every detail from the story of the Franks and Bur- 
gundians. How far is the difference marked by the 
distinction which has for many ages divided the 
Teutonic race into the two great branches of High 
and Low % It might be hard to say how far that 
distinction, a distinction which we may most truly 
describe as the parting off of the later High-Dutch 
forms from the elder forms common toGothand Saxon, 
had already gone in those days. The later Franks, 
the Eastern Franks, the Franks of the Carolingian 
age, appear as a High-Dutch people, at any rate as 
a people ruled by kings whose speech is High-Dutch. 
But the names borne by the kings of the Merowingian 
house distinctly keep the Nether-Dutch forms *, and 
the first settlements of the Franks, those at least 

coDBects it with the Vandal invasion, seemingly placing it a little 
earlier. And the entry of this year strangely connects itself 
with the entry of the year before, to which we shall presently 
come again. Most likely he is right in his facts and confused in 
his dates. 

* The names for instance beginning with Theod- take essentially 
the same shape that they would in Gothic or English. The thorn 
lives ever, in writing at least, in the French forms of Thierry and 
Thibault. So in Chilpe-ric we have the Low-Dutch form AeZp-. 



I 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 37 

which mark their first appearance in trustworthy- 
history, are found in those lands on both sides of 
Ehine which, wherever the speech of the people has 
been allowed to abide, are Nether-Dutch still. To 
Gregory of Tours the city which had been Argento- 
ratum was still Nether-Dutch Strateburg *. The 
difference is most likely merely one of chronology; 
when the first Frank ish conquests began, High- 
Dutch was not yet, and Chlodwig, no less than Alaric, 
spoke a tongue essentially the same as our own. 
But if the Saxon and the Frank were still all but 
one in point of language, their conditions and their 
relations to other men were widely different. There 
is already a wide gap between the Northern and 
the Southern German ; we might rather say between 
the German of the sea and the German of the land. 
The German of the land is already either an ally of 
the Empire, serving in its armies and loaded with its 
honours, or else he is an experienced invader of its 
continental provinces. Very often he flits to and fro 
between the two characters ; but in either or both 
he has become familiar with Eoman things ; even as 
an enemy he is not untouched with admiration and 
reverence for the state of things into the midst of 
which he forces his way. In the Gaulish wars of 
the fifth century the Frank steadily appears as the 
ally of Kome, till he finds it convenient to overthrow 
the last remnant of Eoman authority in Gaul, and 
that, it may be, in the character of the officer of 
a lawful Emperor overthrowing the rule of a tyrant f. 

* Greg, Tur. ix. 36, x. 19. 

t It is, to say the least, worth arguing whether Chlodwig did 



38 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

All the incursions of the Franks, like those of the 
Goths, are made by land. Both Franks and Goths 
have been heard of on the water in earlier days * ; 
but on the water they wrought only sudden and 
passing exploits ; the historic life of both those 
nations was wholly a life by land. Altogether unlike 
them in this age are the northern Germans, the 
Germans of the sea, the men who have not been 
brought within the magic circle of Koman friendship 
and Koman enmity, who have yet to be taught that 
feeling towards the mighty past of the Empire and 
its still abiding present which was felt ahke by the 
heathen Frank and the Arian Goth. I said that 
they had not been brought within the magic circle 
of Eoman enmity any more than within that of 
Eoman friendship. They had indeed felt, alike in 
Gaul and on the coasts of Britain, the might of Eome 
when Kome was ruled by Valentinian f ; but they 
had simply been beaten back in isolated invasions ; 
the German of the sea had not gone through the 
same unbroken apprenticeship to Eoman ways which 
the German of the land found as much in his warfare 
against Eome as in his warfare under the Eoman 
banners. The main cause of the difference doubtless 
lay in the fact that he was the German of the sea. 
The Saxons of this age answer to the Danes and 
Northmen of the ninth and tenth centuries, in whom, 

not overthrow Syagrius in tte character of an officer of the 
Emperor Zeno. 

* See Aurelius Victor, Csesares 23, Zosimos, 1. 

t See the Saxon wars of Valentinian's reiga in Ammianus, 
xxvii. 8, xxviii. 2, 5. 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 



39 



after an interval of some ages, the heathen and sea- 
faring Teutonic warrior again comes to life. But the 
Danes and Northmen come on us as a kind of second 
outburst of the great Wandering after a lull of 
centuries ; the Saxon expeditions and settlements 
of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries are as essen- 
tially a part of the first great movement as the 
marches of Alaric ; they form one special side of it, 
a side that has a character of its own, but both are 
alike parts of the same great drama. Specially must 
it be borne in mind that the Saxon inroads of the 
fifth century, just like the Scandinavian inroads of 
the ninth, touched both sides of the Channel alike, 
and that settlements were made on both sides alike. 
The Saxon of the fifth century seems to have been 
before all things a haunter of the Channel ; we do 
not hear of him now, as we do at a time a little 
earlier*, as threatening the shores of Northern 
Britain. It is the British sea, the sea which parted 
Gaul and Britain, which was his special home ; it 
was there that it was his sport to cleave the wave 
with his light barks clothed, not yet with iron, but 
with the skins of slaughtered oxen ; there it was 
that the men of Armorica were ever looking for hira 
as the sea-rover who was to bring desolation to their 
coasts t- Yet he did not always keep himself within 

* See the passages from Claudian collected in N. C. i. 11; 
" Maduerunt Saxone fuse Orcades," &c. 
t Sidonius, Pan. in Avitum, 369 ; 

" Quin et Aremoricus piratam Saxona tractus 
Sperabat, cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum 
Ludus, et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo. 



40 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

the narrow seas; he could brave the strength of 
Ocean himself, and show himself as a sudden enemy 
on the western coast of Gaul * . In the eyes of the 
men on whose shores they showed themselves every 
Saxon was a sea-robber, a chief of sea-robbers ; 
plunder was the one trade which they all learned ; it 
was the one work which the leaders enforced, and 
which the followers undertook with gladness t. The 
Saxon was an enemy at once fiercer and more wary 
than all other enemies ; he was schooled in ship- 
wrecks ; no danger daunted him ; he fell suddenly 
on those who did not look for him ; he escaped in 
safety from those who was looking out for his 
coming \. The gods of his bloody creed called for the 

Francus Germanum primum Belgamque secundum 
Sternebat, Rhenumque, ferox Alamanne, bibebas 
Eomanis ripis." 
The advance of the Saxons by sea and of the other nations by 
land is here well marked. 

* See the letter of Sidonius to Nammatius (Ep. viii. 3, ed. 
Baret), where he gives a picture of the Saxon sea-rovers (cf. 
Hodgkin, Invaders of Italy, ii. 366). News is brought from 
Saintes that his friend was called upon " littoribus Oceani curvis 
inerrare contra Saxonum pandos myoparones." Much learning 
about the " myoparones " will be found at p. 506 and p. 98 of the 
old edition of Sidonius by Savaron. Some seem to make the 
" myoparones " mere coracles, such as seem to be implied in the 
word " pelle " in the extract in the last note. Others, who are 
surely right, make them much larger ships, doubtless the " lembi " 
of the same extract, the Illyrian X€>/3oi of which we read so often 
in Polybios. They are, I presume, the " keels " of our own story, 
t lb. ; " Saxonum . . . quorum quot remiges videris, totidem te 
cernere putes archipiratas ; ita simul omnes imperant, parent, 
decent, discunt latrocinari." 

% lb. ; " Hostis est omni hoste truculentior. Improvisus aggre- 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 4i 

slaughter and torture of his captives; when he was 
about to turn his sails from the mainland to his own 
home, he deemed it a sacred duty to pick out one 
man out of every ten to perish by a cruel death as 
the thank-offering of their captor's piety *. So did 
our fathers look in the eyes of the man who has 
made the Gaul of the fifth century a living thing for 
all time. That the Saxon in these days never appears 
as the ally of Eome is hardly needful to say. While 
the Frank fights under the Imperial banner, the 
Saxon leagues himself with the Goth as the enemy 
of both t. 

It is important to notice that the Saxons of these 
days, inhabitants, one might almost say, of the 
British seas, not only harried on both sides of the 

ditur, prsevisus elabitur : spernit objectos, sternit incautos ; si 
sequatur, intercipit, si fugiat, evadit. Ad hoc exercent illos 
naufragia, non terrent. Est eis qusedam cum discriminibus pelagi 
non notitia solum sed familiaritas." 

* lb. ; '' Priusquam de continenti in patriam vela laxantes, hostico 
mordaces ancoras vado vellant,mos est remeaturis decimum quemque 
captorum per sequales et cruciarias poenas, plus ob hoc tristi quod 
superstitioso litu necare, superque collectam turbam periturorum 
mortis iniquitatem Eortis sequitate dispergere. Talibus eligunt 
votis, victimis solvunt ; et per hujusmodi non tarn sacrificia 
purgati quam sacrilegia polluti, religiosum putant csedis infaustse 
perpetratores, de capite captivo magis exigere tormenta quam 
pretia." 

Orosius also (vii. 32) paints our early picture ; " Saxonum gen- 
tem in oceani littoribus et paludibus inviis sitam, virtute atque 
agilitate terribilem, periculosam Eomanis finibus." 

t In the complicated alliances in Gaul between 463 and 468 
(see Greg. Tur. ii. 18) we find Romans, Franks, and Britons on 
one side, Goths and Saxons on the other. 



42 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 



Channel, but establislied themselves onbothsides. The 
Saxon of Bayeux and the later Saxon of Winchester 
were colonists who went forth as parts of one general 
movement, and just as among the Scandinavians of 
a later time, the same keels often show themselves 
on both sides of the narrow seas. The results of 
the settlements have indeed been widely different 
in the two cases. The coming of the Saxons, along 
with the kindred Jutes and Angles, of whom, by 
those names at least, we hear nothing in Gaul, 
wholly changed the face of Britain. The face of 
Gaul was immeasureably less changed than the face 
of Britain, and, so far as it was changed, it was 
mainly the Frank who changed it. In the new 
Teutonic Britain which the events of this century 
called into being, the Saxon is one of the two great 
elements alongside of the kindred Angle. In Gaul 
we must always remember that the Saxon is a real 
element in the mixed population ; but he is a very 
subordinate element. His work was local and 
temporary. He kept a field ready for the coming 
of the Norman. The Scandinavian invaders of Gaul 
in the ninth century, the Scandinavian settlers in 
Gaul in the tenth, found a land already partly 
Teutonic to receive them ; the truest Normandy, 
Normandy west of Dives, is specially Norman 
because it is partly Saxon. One main reason which 
made the Saxon settlements in Britain so much 
greater and more lasting than those in Gaul was 
doubtless that in Britain the Saxons and their fellow- 
invaders by sea, Anglian and Jutish, had the field 
to themselves. They came in small parties, a few 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 43 

keels at a time ; but they had no Teutonic rivals 
in Britain, like Goths, Burgundians, and Franks in 
Gaul, coming by land, and naturally coming in far 
greater bodies. In Gaul therefore Saxon settlements 
were small and scattered, and they were gradually 
merged in the greater Teutonic elements in the 
country. In Britain they were also small and 
scattered, but there was nothing to interfere with 
their growth, except the resistance which they might 
meet from the Roman and Celtic elements in the 
land. From the Celtic element in Britain, Saxons 
and Angles did indeed meet a long and stubborn 
resistance, such as none of the Teutonic conquerors 
of Gaul met from any enemy. The Teutonic kingdoms 
in Gaul were founded in a moment ; all save one 
fell in a moment. The Teutonic kingdoms in 
Britain, so much smaller in extent, were the work 
of generations ; and they did not fail, but were 
merged into a single kindred whole. But the main 
difference of all is that in Britain the Teutonic 
conquerors displaced the Celtic andRoman inhabitants 
in a way that they never did in Gaul. They did, not 
only as in Gaul, form one element among the people 
of the land ; they became the people of the land 
itself. They made the land England in a sense in 
which Gaul never became Gothic or Burgundy, or 
even France. Some of the causes which led the way 
to the wide difference between Teutonic settlement 
on the northern and the southern sides of the Channel 
will meet us in the chain of events which we have 
just now reached. 

The same annalist who speaks thus casually of 



44 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

Saxon harry ings in Gaul of which we have no other 
record, does not directly connect that harrying with 
anything that happened in Britain ; but he has 
a remarkable entry the year before, the meaning of 
which seems to be that the Roman power in Britain 
then practically came to an end *. This entry would 
seem to be meant as a short summary of a chain 
of stirring events of which we can, by the help 
of writers who record things more at length, put 
together something like a continuous narrative. 
Britain, the other world, was stirred, as Honorius 
himself was stirred, by the great movement of the 
Teutonic nations beyond the Ehine. We may 
perhaps venture to guess that the Saxon harrying 
of Gaul, so darkly hinted at, had already taken 
place, and that it had been accompanied by some 
Saxon harryings in Britain. However this may be, 
the legions in Britain, forsaken by their Emperors 
at Bavenna, feared lest the storm which was sweeping 
over Gaul should spread to Britain alsof. In such 
a case they took the law into their own hands. 
While the Germans and Alans were gathering, while 
Honorius was calling on the patriots of Gaul to arm, 
the army of Britain chose an Emperor, a tyrant, of 
their own, Marcus by name. The step was not new. 

* This is the famous entry in the so-called Prosper Tiro under 
the fifteenth year of Honorius (408) ; " Hac tempestati prse vale- 
tudine [al. viribus] Eomanorum vires funditus attenuatse Britannise." 
The reading is doubtful, and the phrases anyhow are odd ; but 
there seems no doubt as to the general meaning. 

+ The well-known saying of Jerome, Ep. xlii. ad Ctesiphontem 
(vol. iv. p. 481), "Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum." 



IT.] A Tyrant of the West. 45 

Britain was already known as a land fruitful in 
tyrants *. There Carausius and Allectus had reigned ; 

* Olympiodoros, p. 451 ; eV ravrais rats BperavviaK, TtpXv fj 'Ovoipiov 
TO e^dofxov vnaTevaai, es crTatnv Spfirjcrav to eV avrais crTpaTiwTiKov, MdpKov 
Tiva aveinov avroKpuropa. As Wietersheim (ii. 160) remarks, the date 
is fixed to 406, as the seventh consulship of Honorius was 407. 
We thus see the effect of the mere movement of these nations 
before they actually crossed the Rhine. Olympiodoros tells the 
story out of place to account for the elevation of Constantino, yet 
this date so carefully given must surely be trustworthy. It most 
likely marks the revolt as taking place late in the year 406, 
perhaps while the two Augusti were already consules designati. 
Zosimos in his later account (vi. 2 — he has two earlier references 
to Constantino) seems not to have noticed the force of npo, and places 
the elevation of Marcus in the seventh consulship, or 407 ; "Ert /3ao-t- 

\evovTos ApKabiov Koi vwdrcov ovTav 'Ovapiov to e^Sopov Koi Qeobocriov 
TO bivrepov, ol eu TJj Bperavvia (TTparevopfvoi (rraaiaaavrfs dvdyovai MdpKov 
en\ Tov ^acriXfiov Bpovov koi wj KparoiipTi rav avToBi irpaypdrcov fTTf idovTo. 
Then, in the same chapter, he goes on to describe Constantino's 
crossing into Gaul (which he had already recorded in v. 27) and 
a good deal of what he did there. Then (vi. 3) he goes back to record 
the migration of 406, and then comes to the election of Marcus a 
second time. The Vandals, Suevians, and Alans harry Gaul, koI woXvv 

epyacrdpevoi (fjovop im(J3o^oi Koi rots iv Bperavviais arpaTOTretois iyevovTO, 
crvvqvdyKaaav 8e, teei tov pi) KaTU cr(f)as npoeXdelv^ els rrjv tcov Tvpdvvaav 
opprjaai xeiporov'iav, MdpKov Xe'yca Koi Tpariavov Kul eVi rovrois KavrrTav- 

Tivov. So Sozomen (ix. 11), who takes a more general view; vtto 
fie TovTov TOV xpovov [the taking of Rome] noWav dviaTapevav Tvpdvvcav 
ev TTJ Trpos bvaiv apxfj, oi pev irpos dXkrjKoav TrinTOpres, ol 8e 7;apa86^a>s 
avWap^avopevoi, ov ttjv Tvxovaav enepapTvpovp 'Ovapia 6eo<j)iXeiap. 
UpaTop pev yap ol iv BperraPia (rraaidcravTes tTTpaTiatTai, dvayopevovai 
MdpKop Tvpappop' pfTu 8e tovtov FpaTiavop, dpfXovTes MdpKop' irrel 8e Kal 
ovTos oi) TvKiop Tecrcrdpap prjpSyp duXdovTap icfiopevdrj nap' avTa>p, iraXiv 
K<0P(TTaPTiP0P \eip0T0P0v<Ttp' olrjOePTts KadoTi Tavrrjp fixe Trpoarjyopiap koi 
Pf^aias avTov KpaTrjafiP ttjp ^a<TiX(iap' €K ToiavTijs yap aiTias (f)aivovTat 
Ka\ Tovs aXXovs fs Tvpapviha eTTiXe^dpevoi. This seems to imply that 
Marcus and Gratian, as well as Constantine, were chosen on account 



46 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

thence Maximus had gone forth to occupy Gaul and 
to threaten Italy ; thence the great Constantine him- 
self had gone forth to win the diadem of the world, 
with the risk that, if he had failed to win it, he too 
might have been handed down in history simply as 
one of the same class as Maximus. But Marcus was 
not as Constantine ; he was not as Maximus or as 
Carausius. He and his electors failed to agree*; he 
was speedily slain ; a man of the province was next 
chosen, who bore one of the names current in the 
house of Theodosius. But the British Gratian was 
also killed after a reign of four months, and in the 
course of the next year, the year of the seventh 
consulship of Honorius, a choice which lasted some- 
what longer was made. A private soldier was chosen, 
recommended, we are told, by no merit except that 
he bore the name of the most lucky of his predecessors 
in the choice of a British army. Another Constantine 
was chosen, in the hope that his great name would 
bring good luck with it; and he was hailed as 
Augustus in the island where the first bearer of it 
had been first so hailed f. We hear of the acts of 

of their imperial names. It must be rememberetl that several of 
our authorities leave out Marcus and Gratian, and begin the British 
story with the elevation of Constantine. 

* Olympiodoros says only, tov 8e [UdpKov] inr' alrav dvaipedevros, 
Zosimos in a more marked way, dveXovres tovtov as oix SfioXoyovvra 
Tois avTwv fjdea-i. One would like to know in what the difference 
lay. 

t Olymp. U. S. ; Tpanavos avTois dvTiKaBiirrarai, eirel Se Km ovtos fls 
TfTpaixTjvov avTois 7rpoiTKopr]s yeyopas a.iTe(T(f>dyrj, KavcrTavrivos Tore els to 
TOV avTOKpdTopos dva^i^d^fTM ovopa. So Zosimos (vi. 2) ; ayova-i Tpariavov 
fls piaov Kai oKovpyiba kcu uTfcfiavov ewiOevTeg i8opv(p6povv «s /3ao-iXea" 



Ti.] A Tyrant of the West. 47 

Constantine only from his enemies ; their portrait 
is of course unfavourable ; yet he must have differed 
in some way from his two momentary predecessors ; 
he must at least have had some strength of character 
to do all that he did, and to bear up for several 
years against enemies of all kinds and from all 
quarters. The tale of his first acts is but darkly 
told, or rather the facts are fairly clear, but it is 
less easy to judge of causes and motives. Almost 

dva-apearrjaavres 8f Koi Tovra Tea-crapcnv vcrrepov firj(ri TrapaKvaavTes dvat- 
povari, KavaTavTivm irapabopres rfjv ^aaiXeiav, Sozomen has been quoted 
already in note, p. 45. Orosius (vii. 40) leaves out Marcus, but 
mentions Gratian ; " His [Halanis, Wandalis, et Suevis] per 
Gallias bacchantibus apud Britannias Gratianus municeps ejusdem 
insulse tyrannus creatur et occiditur. Hujus loco Constantinus 
ex infima militia, propter solam spem nominis sine merito virtutis 
eligitur." This looks as if Gratian was not a soldier, but a native 
or inhabitant of Britain of whatever class. It is possible that 
the four months of Gratian came wholly within the year 407, 
in which case the harrying of Gaul would have begun before his 
election. Prosper does not mention either Marcus or Gratian; 
but he gives the right date for the elevation of Constantine ; 
" Honorio vii et Theodosio ii Coss. Constantinus ex infima militia, 
ob solam speciem nominis in Britannia tyrannus exoritur, et in 
Gallias transit." Idatius does not trouble himself about British 
or Gaulish matters, though he has much to say when the invaders 
reach Spain. Marcellinus knows nothing about them till 411, 
when he says " Constantinus apud Gallias invasit imperium," and 
goes on with his later story. 

To these we may in a manner add Zosimos in his first account 
of Constantine, v. 27 (see below, note, p. 49). One is tempted to 
think that he knew nothing about Marcus and Gratian till he 
wrote the latter account. It would almost seem as if nothing was 
known in Italy of the movements in Britain till Constantine had 
actually landed in Gaul. 



48 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [it. 

the first act of the British tyrant was to forsake his 
island and to carry the legions across to Gaul. Of 
his motives for this step we are told nothing. We 
may read the tale in several ways. Some of the 
expressions used in describing the elevation of 
Marcus almost read like a formal secession from Eome 
and the establishment of a separate empire in Britain. 
But, if such notions were really held the year before, 
they certainly had no place in the policy of Con- 
stantine. It might rather seem that his object was 
to preserve the unity of the Empire, at any rate the 
unity of its provinces beyond the Alps. In this 
view it niio'ht be a wise course not to wait to be 
attacked in the island, but to cross to the mainland 
and to deal a blow at the enemy on what he was ' 
fast making his own ground. Britain might thus be 
saved by a campaign in Gaul. But if this was the 
motive, the thought of saving Britain must soon have 
passed away from the minds of Constantine and his 
soldiers. Whether they cared for such, an object or 
not, the course of things on the mainland soon made 
it hopeless for them to think of keeping up any 
relations with the great island. The crossing of 
Constantine into Gaul thus became the end of the 
Eoman power in Britain *. 

He landed at that Bononia of northern Gaul, once 
Gessoriacum, which, though not the starting-point 

* The words of Olympiodoros (p. 451) are noteworthy; ras 
BpeTTavias edaar, TTfpaiovrai afia twu airov eTit Bovaviai', The phrase of 
Zosimos (vi. 2) ttjv Bperravlav KaraXinatv is hardly SO expressive ; but 
of course neither was meant to convey the whole of its full 
meaning. 



IT.] A Tyrant of the West. 49 

of Caesar, has been in all ages one of the chief points 
of passage between the island and the mainland *. 
He brought with him, it would seem, the whole of 
the Eoman force with which Britain had been held or 
defended. It was under the command of two generals, 
Justinian or Justin, and Neobigast, and it would 
seem that it was put under their command before 
the army left Britain f. Of their names, the one is 
clearly Eoman, the other clearly Frankisb, and we 
shall presently see that Constantine was on good 
terms with others of the Prankish allies or subjects 
of Eome. His stay at Boulogne was not long ; but 
it is hard to trace his course in the early stages 
of his advance. He presently gathered under his 
obedience whatever troops were to be found in Gaul, 
whether Frankish allies, legionaries who had been left 
behind by Stilicho, or patriots who had answered 
the summons of Honorius the year before J. The 

* 01ympiod6ros (p. 451) describes Boulogne as Boj/cai/t'a, ttoXi? 

QVTdi KoXovfievT], TrapadaXaaa-ia Koi TrpdiTi] iv tols rcav TiiKKiav opiois Keifievrj, 
The description of Zosimos (vi. 2) is more remarkable ; Trparr} Se avrt] 
irpos Ttj 6a\d(T(rrj Kflrai., Tepfiav'ias ovaa jroXty t^s kutco. One IS re- 
minded of bis description of Paris (iii. 9) as Tepp.av'i.as noklxvrj. 

t Olympiodoros at least says, 'lovarivov kcli Neo^iyaa-Trjv a-TpaTTjyovs 
1rpo^aK6p.evos Koi tch Bperavvlas eaa-as, Trepaiovrai. Zosimos WOrds are, 
6 8e 'lovcTTiviauov Koi Ne^toydoTJ/v apx^eiv rav iv KeArots arpaTicoTaiv 

eTrepaiadr). It would almost seem as if they crossed before their 
master. Nebiogast is clearly a Frankish name, like Arbogast and 
like the four sages of the Saliau Law, Wisogast, Bodogast [or 
Arogast], Saligast, and Windogast. A. Holder, Lex Salica (St. 
Gallen MS. 731 and Ed. Heroldina), Leipzig, 1880. 

X Olympiodoros, u. s. ; epda [ev Bovavi^ StarptS/^as aal o\ov rov TaKKov 
Ka\ 'Akvtovov (TTpaTia)Tr]v l8i(moirja-dp,€vos. The opposition between 
Gaul and Aquitaine is curious. So Zosimos ; navTa olKeiaadfievos ra 

E 



50 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

authority of Honorius was represented in Gaul by 
the Prsefect Limenius and the general Chariobaudes*. 
The name of this last speaks for his barbarian birth ; 
we seem to see in him an English Herebald. Of 
their action at the moment of invasion we hear 
nothing. These names appear only at a later stage, 
when we are told that they had fled before the 
tyrant. But at what stage of his course they fled, 
and whether they oflered any armed resistance to 
the invader before they fled, on these points we are 
left whoUy in the dark. On the whole the chances 
are against any fighting between the followers of 
Constantine and any who remained loyal to Honorius. 
Our authorities are most confused ; but on the whole 
the story reads as if so much of Gaul as still obeyed 
any Boman prince at all submitted to Constantine 
without a blow. 

The mission of the new prince, the object which 

o-TpaTiVfjLara fifxP'- ^^^ ^AXTrecov ovra. He makes them stay at Boulogne 
only a short time, biarpi^as rjjiepas Tivds. Zosimos writes through 
the whole story as if he got his facts from Olympiodoros, but 
thought he could improve his language. 

* These two officers are mentioned by Zosimos in his casual 
way at a later stage, namely at the time when they are murdered ; 

v. 32. The soldiers (see p. 5) rponov nva irapa^opoi yeyovoTfs At/ue- 
viou Tf Tov iv To'is VTTep ras "AXireis 'ddveaiv ovra ttjs av\r)s virap^ov 
anoacfxiTTOvtn, koi afia rovra Xapio^avbrjp tov OTpaTtjyov t5>v eKeltre ray- 
fiarav' ervxov yap 8ia(jivy6vTfs top rvpavvop Koi v7ravTrj<ravTes Kara to 

Tiiajvov Tw ^aa-iXet. Now Honorius does not seem to have been at 
Ticinum till 408. If therefore Limenius and Chariobaudes went 
straight from Gaul to the presence of the Emperor, their flight 
must have been later, at least not till Constantine had reached 
Aries. But with such a writer as Z6simos one cannot feel certain 
one way or another. See Fauriel, i. 55. 



I 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 51 

had brought him from Britain into Gaul, was in 
some way or other to act against the barbarians who 
were in full force in Gaul, and who were held to 
threaten Britain. But it is hard to make out his 
exact relations, either in war or peace, with the 
barbarians either within or without the Empire, 
partly perhaps because our authorities take but little 
pains to distinguish one set of barbarians from 
another. According to one version, the army of 
Constantine saw some sharp service against barbarian 
enemies, and that seemingly not very long after his 
landing. We hear of a great battle fought by him 
or under his auspices, which began wdth a marked 
Koman success of which the Koman commanders 
failed to make the most. The barbarians fled; had 
the Komans pursued, the enemy might have been cut 
to pieces ; but, as the soldiers or their leaders failed 
to pursue, the barbarians recovered strength and 
courage, and, by the accession of new forces, they 
were enabled to hold themselves at least on equal 
terms with Constantine *. Of this fighting we are 
not told the place nor the exact time, nor yet 
the nationality of the particular enemy. But the 
story sounds as if the fighting had happened on the 
frontier against some fresh swarm of barbarians who 
were striving to make their way into Gaul. For our 

* I see no sign of all this fighting anywhere but in Z6simos, 
vi. 3, but it may well come from a lost piece of Olympiodoros ; irphs 

ov [Kai/crai/rtj/ovJ fidx^qs Kaprepas yevofievrjs iviKav fieu oi 'Paixaioi, to iroXv 
tS>v ^ap^apav KaTaa(f)d^avTfs pepos, rois 8e (jievyovcrtv ova ene^fXdovTfS 
{fj yap hv airavras iravaiXedpia bie({>6(ipav) fi/eSaKav avrois dvaKTtja-apevois 
TTjv ^TTap Koi ^ap^dpav irXrjdos avvayayuvaiv d^iopd\ovs yivivdai, 

E 2 



52 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

informant goes on to say that Constantino placed 
guards on the borders and secured the whole course 
of the Ehine. It is a zealous pagan who speaks ; his 
mind goes back to the days of the hero of his own 
creed, and he tells us, with some injustice both to 
the strong reign of Yalentinian and to the more 
recent exploits of Stilicho, that Constantine guarded 
the Ehine as it had never been guarded since the 
days of Julian *. 

On the other hand, the new Emperor or tyrant 
stands charged with doing the republic great damage 
by allowing himself to be many times cheated by the 
barbarians by treaties, vague, it would seem, in their 
terms, and not strictly kept f. This, we may be sure, 
refers to the barbarians who were already in Gaul, 
the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans. Some under- 
standing between them and Constantine, there must 
have been. For two years they and he carry on 
their operations in Gaul, each, it would seem, without 
any interruption from the other. And when the 
scene of action is moved from Gaul to Spain, each 
party carries on its operations there also with as 
little of mutual let or hindrance. It was most likely 
only by winking at their presence and at their 
doings that Constantine obtained possession, so far 
as Eoman troops and Eoraan administration were 

Zosiinos, VI. 3 ', 8ia rmra toIpvv tovtois tois tottoh (jiiiXaKas eyKare- 
CTTTjae KavcrravTwoiy as av fxr/ rrjV eli TaKariav dveifiivTjv €)(Oiev irapahov. 
(yKartcTTrjcre 8e koi tm 'Frjva naaav d(T(paKetav, eK tS>v '\ovki,avov ^a(TiKea><! 
j(p6v<i3V padvurjde'icrav. 

t Orosius, vii. 40 ; " Ibi [in Galliis] ssepe a barbaris incertis 
foederibus illusus detrimento magis reipublicae fuit." 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 53 

concerned, of all Gaul from the Channel to the Alps. 
Certain it is that, at no very long time after his 
landing, before the end of the year 407, he was 
possessed of it*. But at that moment no Koman 
prince could be possessed of much authority in 
central or western Gaul, where Vandals, Suevians, and 
Alans were ravaging at pleasure. The dominions of . 
Constantino must have consisted of a long and narrow i- 
strip of eastern Gaul, from the Channel to the 
Mediterranean, which could not have differed very 
widely from the earliest and most extended of the 
many uses of the word Lotharingia. He held the 
Imperial city on the Mosel, the home of Valentinian 
and the earlier Constantino. Trier, ever ready to rise '^ 
again from her ashes, rose this time among others, 
and Constantino may have been, though at a some- 
what later time, one of the princes to whom her 
citizens made their prayer for the restoration of their 
darling games f . Certain it is, from the sure evidence 
of coins struck there in his name, that he was the 
acknowledged Emperor in the Treveran Augusta J. 
The palace of Valentinian, the mighty basilica, the 
venerable church, as yet in its first and untouched 
state, the bridge that yokes the river sung by 

* As far as one can make anything out from the confused and 
casual statement of Zosimos (v. 27), Constantine was looked on as 
practically master of Gaul before the end of 407. But compare 
this passage with another in v. 31 ; this looks as if at the 
moment just spoken of he was not as yet in actual possession of 
Aries. 

t See above, p. 30. 

X On the coins of Constantine struck at Trier, see Clinton in an. 
407, and Jahn, Geschichte der Burgundionen, i. 288. 



54 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

Ausonius, all that we look down on from the wooded 
hills that guard the Imperial head of Gaul, all had 
passed into the possession, and we cannot doubt that 
it must for a while have beheld the presence, of 
a third adventurer from Britain. 

Of those three adventurers the second had perished. 
Maximus was recorded in history simply as a tyrant ; 
but one Constantino had marched from Britain and 
from Trier to the highest pitch of power and glory, 
and another might be destined to equal luck. It 
did not suit the purposes of Constantino to establish 
the chief seat of his power by the Khine or the 
Mosel. He could perhaps, he thought, deal more 
easily with the barbarians beyond the Ehine than 
with the rival Emperor beyond the Alps. The chief 
seat of his new dominion must be nearer to Italy. 
From henceforth we hear of him chiefly or only in 
the south-eastern corner of Gaul, the land which 
was soon to take a new name from its Burgundian 
conquerors. The land between the Ehone and the 
Alps, whose renowned cities still live to awe and 
teach us by the greatness of their Koman works, 
now becomes the main centre of our tale. Italy, 
Aquitaine, Britain, even Spain, are for us little more 
than scenes of occasional episodes. Each of the cities 
by the broad and rushing stream seems called on in 
these strange times to stand a siege in the cause of 
some Emperor or tyrant, and commonly to behold 
his end. And one city, the foremost of them all 
since Phokaian Massalia had sunk for a while to 
a secondary place, was specially bound up with the 
reign and fate of Constantino. Hardly when the 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 55 

first news came of his crossing the Channel, but at 
the time when his rival of Bome and Kavenna began 
to take counsel against him, one sign of the nearness 
and greatness of the danger was that Constantine 
reigned in Arelate. The city that was in after-days 
to give its name to a kingdom was then at the 
height of its greatness. Its wealth, its splendour, 
its commerce, that brought to it the good things of 
every quarter of the world, were sung in the verses 
of poets and recorded in the edicts of Emperors"^''. 
Not then, as now, sitting by the side of one mighty 
stream, but like Kavenna then, like Venice now, 
floating on many waters, untouched by the blows 
which were fast falling on Imperial Trier, Aries, now 
so sadly fallen from its ancient greatness, stood high 
among the cities of Europe, ready to take the place 
presently to be granted to it in form, of the head of 
all the Gauls f. Already did the walls of which such 
mighty relics abide shelter the dwelling-places of the 
living ; already did the Elysian Fields, now narrowed 
and dishonoured, shelter the long line of the tombs, 
aHke of pagan and Christian dead ; theatre and 
amphitheatre lifted their bulk, still whole and 
perfect, the mass of the arena soaring as now above 
the city, still the home of the savage sports of 
warfare, but not yet a house of war, its outline as 
yet unbroken by the towers reared, some say during 
the momentary possession of the Arab, some say to 

* Ausonius, Ordo Nobilium Urbium. 

t See the Edict of Honorius in the Theodosian Code. It is 
printed also in Duchfesne, i. 85, Cf. Cass. Var. viii. 10. On the 
old position of Aries with regard to the waters, see Ch. Lentheric. 



56 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [n: 

hinder his possession from being more than moment- 
ary. Some great basihca fresh from the builders' 
hands must have rivalled the glories of Eome and 
Eavenna, on the spot where now stands the imperial 
church, the dome where the crown that was specially 
the crown of Aries was set on the head of that 
Frederick who granted the Peace of Constance and 
that Charles who signed the most renowned of 
Golden Bulls. And if as yet Aries could not as in 
after-days boast of the imperial church, she could 
boast of an imperial palace. Already by the Ehone 
stood the still abiding tower, a fragment now of a 
vast pile that has crumbled into ruin, the tower which 
still bears the name of the earlier Constantine and 
which now stood ready to become the dwelling-place 
of his namesake. That the tyrant reigned in the 
lesser Eome of Gaul* was news that might well 
strike fear in the greater Eome of Italy and even 
within the impregnable ramparts and waters of 
Eavenna. To Constantine himself the possession 
of this great city seemed the outward sign of the 
completion of his hopes. Secure, as he deemed 
himself, on the throne at least of all the Gauls, he 
began to take steps for founding a dynasty, a dynasty 
which might call up again the memory of the 
Imperial house whose greatest name he bore. He 
had two sons, both bearing Flavian names, Constans 
and Julian, the former of whom is said to have been 
a professed monk. But, when the aggrandizement 
of his family was concerned, Constantine had slight 

* " Gallula Roma Arelas." O. N. U., Ausonius. 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 57 

regard to ecclesiastical scruples. Constans was called 
from his monastery to receive the rank of Caesar, 
and to take an active part in government and war- 
fare. His younger brother at the same time received 
the title of Nobilissimus *. 

We are without exact dates ; but the news of the 
landing of Constantine in Gaul, the news of the 
occupation of Trier and of Aries, could not have been, 
very long in reaching Italy. We are not told 
whether the beginnings of revolt in Britain, the rise 
and fall of Marcus and of Gratian, had ever been heard 
of at Eome or Eavenna ; at any rate they are not 
recorded as having led to any action on the part of 
the central power. It was otherwise when the 
successive messages came that Constantine had 
landed in Gaul and that he was playing the part of 
Emperor in city after city, and again that he had 
passed through the whole land and had set up his 
throne at Arelate f. When the first message came, 

* Olympiodoros as cited ; ovtos hvo iraibas ea-xe Kavcrravra Koi 'lou- 
"hiavov, oiv Tov fi€V Kavaravra Kaiaapa xeipoTovel, eiravarepov Kara ras avras 

Tjpepai KOI TOV ^lovXiavov va^iKiaaipiov, So Zosimos (vi. 4), who calls Con- 
stans Trpecr^vTepos tS>p naiBcov, but does not mention Julian by name. 
The monastic profession of Constans comes from Orosius ; " Con- 
stantem filium suum, proh dolor, ex monacbo Csesarem factum." 
The collection of Flavian names in the family of this private soldier 
is certainly remarkable. Most likely they were popular in Britain. 
Gregory of Tours (ii. 9) calls Constans Constantius; not so his 
authorities. 

t So far as it is safe to make any inferences from such a 
confused tale as that of Zosimos, I seem to see two messages. One 
(v. 27) comes when Honorius is at Eome and Stilicho at Eavenna — 

idrfKoiiTO ms KtavaraVTlvos eiri6ep.evos e'lr] tt} rvpavvibi Koi eK tt)s BpfTavviKTJs 
vfjo-ov Trepaim6e\s iv to'ls vnep ras "AXneis e6v€(ri TrapayevoiTo, to, ^aai\fa)s 



58 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

Honorius, Emperor and Consul, was at an unusual 
place, namely in Eome itself. Stilicho was at 
Ravenna. At that moment tlie friend of Alaric, he 
was, we are told, making ready for an expedition 
beyond Hadria, to be carried on in fellowship with 
the Gothic king, an expedition the object of which 
was to transfer the cities of lUyricum from the 
obedience of Arcadius to that of Honorius. His 
schemes were thwarted by two rumours, by a false 
report of the death of Alaric and by the true report 
of the advance of Constantino. This last news was 
announced to Stilicho by letters from Honorius him- 
self*. It was not often, one would think, that the 
Augustus had news to tell to the Consular, news at 
least of a graver kind than the revolutions of the 
poultry-yard. Stilicho now gave up the thought of 
an Illyrian campaign, and hastened to consult — so 
we are told — his sovereign as to what was to be 
done. When Gaul had been attacked by a vast 
alliance of barbarians, nothing had been done beyond 
the issuing of proclamations in the province itself. 

iv Tails TToKeai npaTTcov. This seems to be still in 407. Then, under 
the next consuls (see v. 28), come deliberations of Honorius and 
Stilicho (v. 31) at Bologna, in which one consideration is, ^8r, Kav- 
(TTavTLVov Tov Tvpdvuov TTjv TdkaTiav naarav StaSpaynoi/ros Koi iv rfi ApeXdrat 
SiarpidovTos. These, in any writer who at all regarded order, would 
imply two stages. 

* Zosimos, V. 27. Stilicho is making ready atEavenna; but 8vo 

KoiKvfiaTa avve^T) irapenneaelv, ^Tjfij] re i>s 'Wdpixos TeQveats eijj hiabpapiovaa 
Koi €K TTJs 'Pa>firis 'Ovaplov ypafipara tuv jSatrtXecos duaSodevra, These con- 
tained the first piece of news in the last note, p. 57. The report about 
Alaric was doubtful, and was soon known to be false ; ra 8e irepX ttjs 
dvapp^a fas Kavaraprivov "Keyofieva irapa irduriv eKpoTfi. Kanke, iv. 1. 232. 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 59 

But tbe rise of a rival Emperor was a more serious 
matter. The deliberations of Stilicho and Honorius 
seem to have been carried on into the next year(408), the 
year of the consulship of Bassus and Philip, the year 
which saw the death of Arcadius at Constantinople, 
the year in which Honorius — if we can give Honorius 
the praise or blame of any deed good or bad — used, in 
the phrase of the next generation, his left hand to 
cut oif his right, by the slaughter of Stilicho himself*. 
But at the beginning of the year Stilicho is still in 
favour and Honorius contracts the second of his 
strange marriages with the daughters of the great 
Vandal f. Disputes with Alaric, now known to be 
alive, follow; he is ready for warfare in the East, 
for which Stilicho, with Constantino in Gaul, no 
longer designs him. With the tyrant at Aries, his 
counsel now was to send no less a champion than 
Alaric himself, in the character of a Koman general, 
to win back the lost provinces for their lawful prince. 
He himself, Stilicho, will undertake the affairs of the 
East, while the West-Gothic king represents the true 
majesty of Eome beyond the Alps \. 

A day was to come before long when a West- 
Gothic king was to go on such an errand, but the 

* The saying of the barbarian to the last Valentinian after the 
murder of Aetius (Procop. Bell. Vand. i. 4) ; oti avrov rrfv Be^iav rfi 

erepa X"P' dnoTefiav fir], 

t Zosimos, V. 28. 

X Zosimos, V. 31. Stilicho determines yvafirjv ttjv dplarrjv flvai 
Koi Tjj iroXiTela \v(TiT€\ova-av, 'AXdpixov fiev eniarpaTeva-at ra rvpavvca, 
tS)V re (Tvv avra ^ap^apap ayovra fxepos Koi TeXij 'Pw/iaifKci Koi T]y(p.ouas, ot 
KoivfjcrovcTiv avTia tov Trokep,ov, tt]v eaav Be avTos KaroKri^eiTOai pacrtXecus 
KeXfvoiTos Koi ypafifiara nepl tov irpaKriov StSdcros. 



60 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

work for which Alaric was destined was of another 
kind. Yet another Goth was sent this very year to 
do the work of Honorius against Constantine. It is 
hard, though we are chiefly following one authority, 
to put the facts together out of a most confused 
narrative. We hear of the growing influence of 
Olympius at the court of Honorius, an influence used 
to bring about the downfall of Stilicho. We hear of 
Honorius at Ticinum, while Stilicho is at Bologna. 
We get a picture of the Emperor haranguing the 
troops who are to march, under whose command we 
are not told, against the tyrant at Arelate. A mutiny 
breaks forth, a mutiny which, it is implied, is in 
some way connected with the intrigues of Olympius 
against Stilicho. And it is most significant, though 
we cannot fully understand the significance, that the 
outbreak of the soldiers led to the slaughter of the 
two officers, Limenius and Chariobaudes, who had fled 
before Constantine to Honorius, and who must have 
joined him quite lately "^^ They were already in the 

* See above, p. 50, note. Honorius is under the influence of Olym- 
pius. Then (v. 32), says Zosimos, fKTaKKrjBevTcov els to. ^aa-iXtia tS)V 
arpaTicoTQiv ecjiaiveTO re avrols 6 ^acriXevs Koi els top Kara KcovcTTavnvov rov 
Tvpavvov 7rape6ap(Tvv€ TtoKepov. Then come the mysterious words, Trept 
be '2re\L)^a)vos ovdevos KivrjBevros ecpaivero vevcov toIs arpariaiTats 'OXvfnnos 
Koi axiivep a.vapi.fxvT)crKa>v S)v ervxev avrols ev Trapa^varci 8i.aKe)(6eLS. Then 
comes the slaughter of Limenius and Chariobaudes, and of [Vin- 
centius * magister equitum' and Salvius, 6 8e dopea-TiKav rdyparos 
Trpoea-ras, and] some others. They would thus seem to have been in 
the interest of Stilicho. As Honorius had been only four days at 
Ticinum, they could have only just joined him there ; but they 
need not have come stiaight from Trier, Aries, or whatever part 
of Gaul they started from. 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 6i 

interest of Stilicho, and on their fate presently follows 
the fate of Stilicho himself. Yet we read elsewhere 
that it was at Stilicho's bidding that Sarus, the 
valiant Goth whose name we so often meet in the 
history of these times, was sent with a force into 
Gaul to bring back the land into the obedience of 
Honorius *. The campaign of Sarus is undoubted ; 
but we have no means of fixing the relations between 
his campaign and the force that he held and the 
contemplated march of the troops that broke out into 
mutiny at Ticinum. 

Anyhow the newly-built-up throne of Constantine 
was threatened. Are we to suppose that, after 
embarking on so hazardous an enterprise, he shrank 
from personal danger, or that he was conscious of 
a lack of military skill 1 Some accounts represent 
him, at a later time at least, as more active at the 
table than in the camp f. Certain it is that it was 
not Constantine in person who met the army of 
Sarus in battle. While the barbarians were marching 
and harrying throughout the land without let or 
hindrance, two Roman armies met, both doubtless 
largely made up of barbarian soldiers. The cause of 
Constantine was defended by his lieutenant Justinian ; 
but the fortune of war was on the side of legitimacy. 
Sarus gained a victory which carried with it the 

* Sarus has been already mentioned by Zosimos, v. 30 ; but our 
account of this campaign comes wholly from vi. 2 ; Kara tovtovs 

Toiis \p6vovs ^apov tov arpaTTjyov (KnifiTVH pera crTparevparos Kara Kcov- 
(TTavrivov '2t e\i \ciiv. 

t " Constantinus guise et ventri deditus," says Eenatus Profuturus 
Frigeridus in Greg. Tur. ii. 9. 



62 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

death of Justinian and of the greater part of his 
army, and the winning of great spoil by the army of 
Honorius *. Of the details of the fight, of the place, 
of the exact time, we hear nothing ; but it is clear 
that it was fought somewhere in the lower Khone- 
land, and it would seem that the routed army could 
have been only a small part of the forces of Con- 
stantino. Where he himself was at the moment we 
are not told ; we know only that, after the battle, he 
deemed it wise to secure himself in one of the strong 
cities of the land, but in one which lies a good way 
to the north of his newly chosen capital. Many of 
those cities are greater in old renown, many are 
richer in abiding remains of Imperial power, but 
none holds a stronger site ; none looks naore proudly 
from its height on the great river at its feet, than the 
city in which Constantino sought shelter against the 
attack of Sarus. The walls of the Gaulish Valentia 
do not still stand in witness of those days like the 
walls of Arelate and the true Vienna ; but in those 
days the city of the Sagellauni was one of the great 
fortresses of the land. Its name might suggest the 
thought of the great prince who had bestowed that 
name on the recovered regions of the island that 
Constantino had forsaken. But while the Valentia 
of Britain did indeed preserve the name of Valen- 
tinian, the Valentia of Gaul was of older date ; it 
bore the name of Kome herself, and the Valentia by 
the Ehone might pass as not only the colony but the 

Zosimos, VI. 2 J 6 6e [^SaposJ 'louortwai/w to (XTparrjya fiera T^f 
Bvvafieas tijs <tvp avrm a7ravTTj<ras avTov re dvaipei Koi rav oTpartaTav 
r^u irKfiova pdipav, Koi \eias ttoXX^; yevopevos Kvptos, 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 63 

namesake of the Valentia by the Tiber. There 
Constantine took his stand. Sarus followed him and 
laid siege to the strong hill-city. But the Goth 
went on to sully his hitherto honourable successes 
by a deed of foul treachery. One of Constan tine's 
generals, the Eoman Justinian, had fallen in battle ; 
the other, the Frankish Nebiogast, now made friendly 
advances to Sarus ; oaths were exchanged ; but oaths 
went for little with Sarus, and Nebiogast was pre- 
sently put to death*. And now, after these successes, 
the whole enterprise of which Sarus was the head 
breaks down in a strange way, which we should be 
well pleased to have explained to us at greater 
length. The murder of Nebiogast must have 
happened while Sarus was before Valence, which 
was no great length of time. To replace his lost 
generals, Constantine appointed two men whose 
military reputation would seem to have been higher 
than theirs. Another Frank, Edeobich or Edobich 
by name, and Gerontius, who had come from Britain, 
and in whom we can hardly fail to see a name-father 
of more than one British Gerent, were put at the 
head of the forces of Constantine. Sarus, we are told, 
was so fearful of their skill and experience in war that 
he raised the siege of Valence on the seventh day f. 

lb. «r«8^ YLavaravrivQv avTov eypto noXiv KaraKa^ovTa 'BoKevriav, 
apKov(Tav avT(S irpos d(T(f)d\eiau, els TToKiopKiav KaTfarrjae. Ne^Stoydorou 8e 
Tov XfiTTOfjLePov arpaTTjyov Xoyovs tw Sdpco Trepl (piXias npocrdyopTos 
i8e)(fTo pev a>s (f>iKop top apbpa, bovs 8e Koi Xa/Scbf opKovs dpaipel irapaxprjpa, 
prjbeva tS>p opKcop itoirjcrdpevos \6yov. 

\ lb. KoiPfTTaPTiPov 8e arrpaTrjyov KaTaarrjaavros 'EScojStyp^oi' ^pdyKOV 
uPTa TO yeVof, TepopTiop 8e dno rrjs Bperrapias o/a/iw/ieyoi', detcras 6 'Sdpos 



64 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

His object was now to get back into Italy ; the 
generals of Constantine overtook him with a great 
force and brought him to great straits. But the 
words of our story would seem to imply that this 
was rather by harassing his march than by an actual 
battle. He escaped into Italy with great difficulty, 
and that only by help which we should hardly have 
looked for. Alongside of the new scourges of Gaul, 
barbarian invasion and civil war, a far older scourge 
had either lived on or had shown itself again. The 
Bagaudse, the Jacquerie of more than a hundred 
years earlier, were still in force, at any rate on the 
Gaulish slopes of the Alps. They met Sarus, with 
what objects we are not told, but we are given to 
understand that his passage into Italy was made 
secure by a timely gift to the Bagaudse of the spoil 
which he had won in his victory over Justinian *. 
Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than this kind of 

T^i/ tS>v crTpaTTjymv tovtcou nepi to. TTokefiia Tretpav ofiov Koi avbp'iav ave)(a)pr](r€ 
riji 'BakevTias, enra TrciXiopKr](ras airfjv fjfiepas. The British Gerent is of 
qourse merely a form of Gerontios ; but it has become a specially 
British name, and it is worthy of notice that we see it so early. 

* Zosimos, vi. 2 ; KaradpaiiovToov 8e avTov rS>p KcovoTavrivov crrpaTifyoiv 
fiera fjLeylaTrjs BvvacrTeias, <Tvv ttoXXm 8i«ro}6q ttovo), ttjv Xeiav ananav butprf- 
<Tap.evos Tills Trepl ras ''AXneis dTravrrjcracnv aira BaKavSais, ottcos €vpv)(a>pins 
■nap avTutv ruxfl T^y eVi rfjv 'iraXlav Trapobov. KarabpafiovTcov would 
seem to imply skirmishes rather than a regular battle ; Swaa-reia is 
a singular word for a military force, and there is something strange 
in this quite taking for granted of the Bagaudse. He does not 
mention them elsewhere, and his bringing them in in this way 
might almost suggest that there is something in the view of Dubos- 
(i. 205, of. Gibbon, v. 223, ed. Milman) that the Bagaudae were, now 
at least, something of a local militia rather than mere freebooters. 
See Ducauge in voc. [See my Hist. Essays, Series iv. p. 118.] 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 65 

story. We put up with the mere annalist, who 
records victory and defeat without attempting to 
explain their causes ; but here we are told just 
enough to awaken our curiosity without satisfying 
it. But in any case the enterprise of Sarus alto- 
gether broke down ; he had slain in war and by 
treason two generals of Constantine ; but their death 
seems only to have led to the advancement of more 
competent successors. Whatever might become of 
Britain and Italy, the tyrant from the island was 
now the only representative of Eoman dominion in 
Gaul. His power was at all events firmly established 
in his own south-eastern corner, which Vandals, 
Suevians, and Alans, on their march from the Belgian 
lands to the Pyrenees, would be likely to leave 
untouched *. And as if Gaul were a separate realm 
and Italy a hostile land, he strengthened himself 
against a second invasion from beyond the Alps, by 
placing garrisons in their three chief passes, Cottian, 
Pennine, and Maritime f. 

Olympiodoros, U. S. ; Kpare^ iravTcav tS)V fiepStp rrjs TaXaTias fi^XP'- ''^'' 
"AXneav rmv fisTu^v 'iraXtas re Koi TaXaTias. Zosimos (vi. 2), in 

a passage part of which has already been quoted, seems to copy 
the definition ; irdvra re olKetwardfievos ra a-Tpareviiara fiexpi t5>v "AXneav 
ovra Totv opi^ovaSiv TdXarLav koi 'IraXiav, d<T(})aXS)s e^eirGai. t^? ^aaiKeias 
idonei. The distinction is perhaps needful, as Orosius talks of 
" Pyrensei Alpes." 

1* lb. ; Sapou Toivvu ovTcos els ttjp 'irdXlav BiaaadtvTOS avvayayuv 
6 KavaTavrivos ttjv 8vpap,iv anatrav e-yi'ca (f>vXaKas dpKovcras eyKarao'Tjiijai 
Tais "AXireaiv. ^a-av 8e aSrai rpeis, al ras en\ ttjv 'iraXiav diro KeXrau 
KaKfWev eneKdva ras obovs aTroKXeiovarai, Korrtai Hoivivai Mapiripai. 

Sozomen too (ix. 11) brings in the Cottian Alps, though he makes 
no mention of the expedition of Sarus. His summary of events 

F 



66 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [it. 

Constantine was now undisputed master of Gaul, 
at least of the remnant of Gaul that clave to Eome. 
Britain he had left behind him. If he aspired to the 
dominion of Italy, he prudently put oif any attempts 
on that side, till he had made himself master of all 
the provinces beyond the Alps. He was bound, for 
his own ends, to extend his dominion from Gaul in 
the geographical sense, to Gaul in the widest official 
meaning of the word, and to complete his possession 
of the Gaulish prefecture by the acquisition of Spain. 
The great peninsula of the west was one of the most 
flourishing parts of the Homan dominion, and the 
one which had suffered least from barbarian invasion. 
Since the Teutonic harryings in the days of Gallienus 
Spain had been untouched by strangers, free from 
any oppression save what it may have suffered at 
their hands who represented the power of Eome 
witbiii its borders *. The legions that were regularly 

runs ; Ufpaia^eis Se Kffli'oraiTeti'os aTTo BpeTTavias eVt Bovmviav noKiv ttjs 
TaXarias nepl BaXaacrav Kfifievrju, irpooTjydyeTO tovs irapa TaKarais Koi 
AKOviravols, arpaTiooTas' Ka\ tovs Tjj8f vutjkoovs TrepieiroiTjcrev iavTci, p^XP^ 
t5)v pera^v 'iraXias koI TaXaTias opav, as KoTTias AXirfis 'Ptopaioi KaXoviTi. 
KoDvaraPTa 8e tov Trpea^vTepov rav avrov vteav, ov varepov fiaaiXems crx^pa 
evedvae, Kaiaapa t6t€ avayopevcras, nfnopt^fv tls S/rawai/. His whole 
story seems to come from the same source as that of Zosimos, 
though there are odd differences. The use of 'Papaloi, as in 
Procopius and long after in Constantine Porphyrogenitos, shows 
the difficulties sometimes felt by those who were Romans by political 
allegiance but not Latins iu speech. 

* This seems implied in the emphatic though somewhat involved 
words of Orosius ; " Irruptse sunt Hispaniae ; csedes vastationes- 
que passse sunt : nihil quidem novum. Hoc enim nunc per 
biennium, illud quo hostilis gladius ssevit sustinere a barbaris quod 
per cc quondam annos passse fiierant a Romanis, quod etiam sub 



i 



II.] A Tyrant of the IVest. 67 

quartered in Spain, and which were doubtless largely 
made up of natives of Spain, claimed the defence of 
the land as their special work, and resented any 
intrusion of strangers as a breach of their local 
privileges *. But the land had commonly been 
passive in revolutions, and had readily accepted 
such rulers as bore sway on the other side of the 
Pyrenees f. But at this particular moment, an element 
had to be reckoned with in Spain which would hardly 
have passed for a political influence in any other 
province. Spain had given the world a dynasty. 
Theodosius, like Trajan before him, had come forth 
to rule the Empire from the most western of its 
provinces, and to rule it, like his great countryman, 
so as to leave a memorable name behind him. The 
sons of Theodosius, princes of Spanish descent, still 
ruled, or at least reigned, at Constantinople and at 
Eavenna. The kinsfolk of the Imperial house, though 
not marked out from other men by titles or offices 
known to the Empire at large, were men of wealth 

imperatore Gallieno per annos propemodum xii Germanis evex-ten- 
tibus exceperunt." 

* So witnesses Zosimos (vi. 5) a little later ; Tav eV 'l^vpia 
crpaToneSav ifxirurrevBrfvai, Kara to avvrjBes rrju (jivXaic^v ahrjaavTav, Kot fifj 
^evois eTnTpanrjpai rfju ttjs xiapas dacfxiXfiav. 

t Such is the remark of Gibbon (v. 223, ed. Milman); "His 
throne was soon established by the conquest, or rather submission 
of Spain ; which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual 
subordination, and received the laws and magistrates." He adds ; 
" The only opposition which was made to the authority of Constan- 
tine proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the 
spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest of the 
family of Theodosius." 

F 2 



68 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

and influence in their own land, attached to the 
throne of their Imperial kinsmen and acknowledged 
by those kinsmen as men bound to them by the ties 
of blood. To the mass of the people of Spain it 
might seem most natural that Spain and Gaul should 
go together; to the members of the Theodosian 
house and to all who shared their feelings the first 
object of all was that the land of Theodosius should 
abide in the allegiance of the sons of Theodosius. 
Constantino had therefore to look, not so much for 
any general resistance in arms on the part of the 
province or its regular defenders, as for whatever 
amount of opposition in any shape could be stirred 
up by a few powerful men. But that opposition 
was likely to be of a very dangerous kind. Con- 
stantino is described as fearing a joint attack from 
two branches of the Theodosian family, from the 
Emperor in Italy by the way of the Alps and from his 
kinsmen in Spain by way of the Pyrenees. Lest his 
dominion should fall when thus assaulted on both 
sides, Constantino determined to forestall all attacks 
from the Spanish side, and at once to begin the occupa- 
tion of the peninsula *. The date is not hard to fix. 
We are still in the year 408, the year of the campaign 
of Sarus and of the death of Stilicho. That year saw 
also the death of Arcadius and the beginning of the 

Zosimos, VI. 4 ; twi/ airodi fev 'l/3?7p/a] iravTcap i6vS>v iyKparrjs 
yevea-dai ^ovXofxfvos, coare koI rfjv dp^fju av^rjaai Koi afta Tf)V tS>v 'Ovapiov 
(Tvyyfvav avTodi bvvaa-Tfiav eKKoyj/^ai. beos yap avTov elarjei fifj jrore 
bvvapiv avvayayovres rap avrodi err paricorav avroi peu aira Bia^dvres ttjv 
Ilvpr]vr)v ineXdoKv, dno 8e ttjs 'iraXlas 6 ^aaiKevs 'Ovapios eTrmip'^^tas avra 
TO arpaToneBa t^s Tvpavvibos, KVKXa TravraxoGev TrepiKa^cnv, napaXvaeifv. 



69 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 

long reign of the younger Theodosius *. It saw 
also the operations of the forces of Constantine in 
Spain. Those operations, it has been truly remarked, 
imply some kind of treaty or understanding with the 
barbarians who, it must never be forgotten, were still 
ranging through Gaul at pleasure f. The relations 
between him and them, the way in which each side 
seems to act with no seeming hindrance on the 
part of the other, form one of the great puzzles 
of our story. Some of the vain agreements with 
the invaders of Gaul, so darkly hinted at by a con- 
temporary J, must surely have taken place at this 
stage. 

It would almost seem that for a while (408) the pen- 
insula submitted without any opposition to the ruler 
of Gaul and to the officers whom he sent to represent 
himf. But if so, this submission was only for a 

* Theodosius was now in tlie sixth year of his reign as his 
father's colleague. Born in 401, he became Augustus in 402; he 
took his first consulship in 403, and kept his g'Mmg'wewnaZm in 407. 
See Sozomen, viii. 4, and the Fasti. He was as much Emperor 
before as he was now, only the style now was "Honorius et 
Theodosius Augg." instead of " Arcadius, Honorius, et Theodosius." 

t Wietersheim, ii. 161 ; " Auch muss zu Beginn dieses Jahres 
eine Art von friedlichen Yertragnisse zwischen ihm [Constantin] 
und die Eingedrungenen Barbaren bestanden haben, so dass er 
ohne Gefahr eines jeden Angriffs durch dieselben an Ausdehnung 
seiner Herrschaf auf Spanien denken konnte." 

X See above, p. 52, and note. 

§ Orosius, u. s. ; "Misit in HispaniasywcZices, quos cum provinciae 
obedienter accepissent, duo fratres . . . tueri sese patriamque 
moliti sunt." After this comes the mission of Constans. From the 
other writers one would think that Constans was sent as the first 
step on the part of his father towards action in Spain. It seems 



70 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

moment. Among the kinsmen of Honorius, four 
brothers, bearing the names of Didymus, Yerenianus, 
Theodosius or Theodosiolus, and Lagodius — we may- 
mark a certain tendency to Greek names in the 
Theodosian house — held a high position for birth and 
wealth in different parts of Spain*. Two of them, 
Didymus and Yerenianus, now raised the standard of 
legitimacy, the standard of their own house. The 
other two seem to have taken no part in the enter- 
prise f . Didymus and his brother, we are pointedly 

more likely that they should have left out an earlier mission than 
that Orosius should have imagined two missions when there was 
only one. 

* Theodosius, Theodosiolus, Didymus, Lagodius, Arcadius. On 
the other hand there is Honorius. Galla Placidia is called after 
her mother, the daughter of Valentinian. Sozomen (ix. 1 2) speaks 
of Theodosiolus and Lagodius eV irepais inapxiais diarpl^ovres, while 
the other brothers carried on the war. 

t The accounts here are somewhat hard to bring into agreement 
in detail. The clearest account is that of Sozomen (ix. 11, 12), 
who does not put the events in exactly the same order as Zosimos 
(vi. 4). Orosius moralities more, but goes less into detail ; from 
Olympiodoros we unluckily hear nothing again tUl a later stage. 
After the passage quoted above, Sozomen goes on ; 6 Se [Kwi/o-tos] 
TO ZQvos KaroKa^av, ap^^ovrai Ihiovs KaT€(TTT]<Te. Koi 8e(rp.iovs aira dxdrjvai 
npofTera^e Aitvfwv Koi Bepeviavov, tovs 'Ovcoplov avyyevets' ot ra Trpcora 
Siacfyepofjifvoi npos iavToiis, els Kivbvvov KaTaoTTjtravTfs cap^vorjaav, Koi 
TrXrjdos aypoiiccov koi olnerav (rvWe^avres, Koivfj Kara rrfv hvavraviav 
TTapfTa^avTO, /cat ttoXXoit avelXov rmv els aiiWrjyl^iv aiiT&v aTroara'KevTav 
UTTO Tov Tvpawov orpaTiaTciv' fiera be ravra <rvp.p.a-)(ias npocrTideloTjs rois 
ivavTiois, ii(oyprjdT](rav, Ka\ afia rais avrav yafierals aTTr])(6r](Tav Ka\ varepov 
dvr]pe6r]<rav. 

The version of Zosimos runs thus ; eVt tovtois 6 Kavaras els tt/v 

*l^T]piav Ste^i; . . .' tS>v 8e ev rfj avXfj rd^ecov ap^ovrds re ttoKitikovs dfia 
Kai arpaTKOTiKovs KaracrTqaas, ayei 8id tovtup en' eKeivovs oi yefei tw 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 71 

told, did not themselves assume the tyranny in oppo- 
sition to the tyrant ; so to do, it seems to be implied, 

/3ao-tXfi GeoSaxrtM TrpoarjKOVTfs to. rrji 'l^rjpias (TweTapdrTovro irpdyfiara, 
irpoTepov fieu vrpos avrov '^mvaravra 8ia tS>v iv ttj Avairavia arparonebaiv 
apdpevoi noXefiov, eirel 8e Tr\eoveKTei(Tdai crvvrja-BovTO, TrXrjdos olnermu Koi 
yfcopywv iinaTpaTexKravTes Koi tvnpa ^paxel KaTaa-rrjaavTes avrov tls peyicrrov 
Kivhwov. oKKa KavravQa rrfs iknlhos diajxapTovTfs KavaravTi (tvv tois 
<r<f)S>p yvvai^lv rjaav iv (f>v\aKiJ. 

Orosius goes on from the place already quoted ; " Fratrea 
juvenes nobiles et locupletes Didymus et Verenianus . . . plurimo 
tempore servulos tantum suos ex propriis preesidiis colligentes 
ac vernacula alentes sumptibus, nee dissimulato proposito absque 
cujusque inquietudine ad Pyrensei claustra tendebant. Adversus 
hos Constantinus Constantem filium suum, proh dolor, ex monacho 
Csesarem factum, cum barbaris quibusdam qui quondam in fcedus 
recepti atque in militiam allecti Honoriani vocabantur, in His- 
panias misit. Hie apud Hispanias prima mali labes. Nam inter- 
fectis illis fratribus qui tutari private prsesidio Pyrensei alpes 
moliebantur," &c. 

Here is first the difference already pointed out that Orosius 
makes the brothers rise against officers already sent by Constantine, 
and makes Constans come against them, while in the other two 
versions the brothers seem at least not to rise till after the 
coming of Constans, though, in the way that both Sozomen and 
Zosimos tell the story, the chronological order is not strictly 
observed, and their words might be understood of an earlier 
rising. This so far confirms the version of Orosius, though the 
"judices" whom he makes Constantine send first of all before 
Constans must surely be the same as the ap^ovres set up by 
Constans in Sozomen. The apxovres in Zosimos are in a marked 
way connected with the ev avXjj rd^eis, who seem to be the same as 
the Honoriani in Orosius. 

Then, whenever the movement of Didymus and Verenianus 
took place, our authorities seem hopelessly at variance as to its 
geography. Orosius makes them collect an army of slaves and 
peasants and occupy the Pyrensean frontier before Constans comes. 
Both Zosimos and Sozomen make Lusitania the first seat of war ; 



72 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

would have been the most natural course for men in 
their position ; they strove for their country and for 

only Zosimos makea the brothers begin their enterprise with such 
regular troops as were quartered in Lusitania ; when these are 
defeated, they gather an army of peasants and slaves, who for 
a while bring Constans to great straits, but who are afterwards 
defeated. In Sozomen the brothers, after making up some differ- 
ences between themselves which are unexplained and of which we 
hear nothing elsewhere, appear in Lusitania at the head of their 
irregular army, and seem for a while to be successful in a guerrilla 
warfare. Then new forces come to the help of Constans, and they 
are defeated. One may suspect that this last is another version 
of the coming of Constans himself, and the word a-vfifxaxia suggests 
the Honorians. In any case, we have, as in Orosius, two sendings 
of forces to Spain on the part of Constantine. 

The " rustic army of the Theodosian family," as Gibbon calls it, 
appears in all the versions. It is the one thing about which all 
the accounts agree, and we therefore accept it as the one thing 
about which we may be really certain. But our accounts do not 
agree as to its sphere of action ; or rather Orosius gives us a clear 
and probable version, while Sozomen and Zosimos are quite vague. 
Ill Orosius they occupy, or at any rate set out to occupy, the 
passes of the Pyrenees (" tendebant," " moliebantur," imply rather 
an attempt than an actual occupation). Yet we can hardly get rid 
of the mention of Lusitania, a land which is mentioned by both 
Z6simos and Sozomen, though they differ as to what happened 
there. I think, on the whole, that we may infer, 

First, That Constantine sent agents or troops into Spain twice, 
the second time under the command of his son Constans. This is 
distinctly asserted by Orosius and is partly confirmed by Sozomen. 

Secondly, That the movement of the brothers was a rising 
against the first occupation, and that Constans was sent to put 
down their rising. This again is distinctly asserted by Orosius, 
and several expressions in the other two writers (though they tell 
another stoi'y) help to confirm it. 

Thirdly, That the rustic army is the most authentic part of the 
story, as being asserted by all three writers, and that its main 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 73 

their lawful prince at once against the tyrant and 
against the barbarians who followed him *. But if 

action was directed, seemingly unsuccessfully, towards guarding 
the Pyrenees. This is distinctly asserted by Orosius, and it is 
consistent with the language of the other two. 

Fourthly, That something happened in Lusitania before the 
march of the rustic army towards the Pyrenees. This is the 
hardest part of the story. Orosius says nothing about Lusitania. 
In Sozomen the action there is successful action of the rustic 
army. In Zosimos it is unsuccessful action of regular troops 
before the rustic army is got together. He makes the rustics 
fight better than the regulars, which, though unexpected, is quite 
possible. In the other stories there are no regulars on the side 
of the brothers. Yet one cannot help thinking that the twofold 
action of the rustics in Sozomen, first in Lusitania, then somewhere 
else, is the same as the action in Zosimos, first of the regulars 
in Lusitania, then of the rustics somewhere else. Zosimos can 
hardly have imagined his regulars ; so that so far his account 
has the preference to Sozomen. Only Sozomen represents the first 
action, whether of rustics or regulars, as successful, Zosimos as 
unsuccessful. In this kind of warfare, there might be many 
alternations of success, but the gathering of a second army slightly 
favours the version of Z6simos. 

On the whole the probabilities of the case would seem to be met 
by such an account as I have given in the text. 

* So Orosius ; " Non assumpserunt adversus tyrannum quidem 
tyrannidem, sed imperatori justo adversus tyrannum et harharos 
tueri sese patriamque suam moliti su^it." He goes on ; " Quod ipso 
gestae rei ordine patuit. Nam tyrannidem nemo nisi celeriter 
maturatam secreto invadit, et publicse arma cujus summa est 
assumpto diademate ac purpura videri ante quam sciri." 

It would seem to be from the phrase " tyrannum et barbaros," 
where " barbaros " surely means the Honorians, that Isidore of 
Seville (who seems to be followed by Fauriel, i. 51) developed 
the picture which is given at the beginning of the "Historia 
Wandalorum " of Didymus and Verenianus defending the passes of 
the Pyrenees against the Alans, Suevians, and Vandals during 



74 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [ii. 

two of the four brothers were united as to ends, they 
were not at first of one mind as to means. It was 

the whole time of their sojourn in Gaul. His story is made 
out of Orosius in a curious way. He first copies the passage 
quoted above with some noteworthy changes. He leaves out the 
" multseque cum his alise gentes " of Orosius, doubtless because 
Vandals, Alans, and Suevians were the only nations whom he 
could see in the later history of Spain. Then he changes the order 
of tlie words of Orosius, " Francos proterunt, Rhenum transeunt, 
Gallias invadunt " into " transito Rheno, Gallias irruunt, Francos 
proterunt," because he was most used to Franks in Gaul, and 
hardly understood the process of getting into Gaul by fighting 
Franks on the other side of the Rhine. Then, whereas Orosius 
surely means simply that they reached the Pyrenees without 
hindrance either from man or nature, and then shrank for a while 
from attempting anything so strange as the mountain passes, 
Isidore has the passes ready guarded by the kinsmen of Honorius. 
It is possible that they may have commanded the native forces in 
Spain ; but there is no reason to think that they did, as this 
piece of Isidore is full of confusion. He goes on ; " cujus [Pyrenaei] 
obice per Didymum et Verenianum nobilissimos et potentissimos 
fratres ab Spania tribus annis repulsi per circumjacentes Gallise 
provincias vagabantur. Sed postquam iidem fratres, qui privato 
praesidio Pyrensei claustra tuebantur ob suspicionem tyrannidis 
insontes et nulla culpa noxii a Constantio Csesare interfecti sunt, 
memoratse gentes Spanianas provincias irrumpunt." But it was 
against Constans, not against Vandals and Alans, that the brothers 
gathered their " privatum prsesidium," and Isidore seems to have 
jumbled together Constantine, Constans, and Constantius. 

This version of Orosius has been followed by Fauriel, i. 51, 
where Didymus and " Valerian " appear at a very early stage of 
the story as guarding the Pyrensean passes at the head of the 
Pyrensean mountaineers, and with them driving back the bar- 
barians. All this seems to come out of Orosius' phrase of the 
"obex," as improved by Isidore. The "barbari" of Orosius' 
narrative whom Didymus and Verenian oppose are surely the 
Honorians of Constantine. The Vandals, Suevians, and Alans are 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 75 

only after some unexplained differences among them- 
selves that Didymus and Verenianus agreed on any 
combined action. The general course of events is 
clear ; but it is not easy to put together our various 
short notices into a connected story. It would seem 
that Lusitania was the part of Spain in which the 
brothers had most influence, and that in which they 
first took up arms. One account reads as if a regular 
legion quartered on that side of the country joined 
the cause which they supported. It was seemingly 
at this stage that the Caesar Constans was sent from 
Gaul by his father to put down the revolt and to 
bring its leaders before him in bonds *. He came 
at the head of the barbarian allies whom his father 
had found in Gaul. They bore the name of Hono- 
rians, but they were enlisted on behalf of Constantino 
against the prince whose name they bore. A motley 
gathering of troops of various nations, Scots, Moors, 
and Germans, they ranked among the household 
troops of the Empire, but they were likely to be 
indifferent as to which of two rival Augusti they 
drew their swords to support f. Constans took with 

not seen in Orosius' narrative between the words " His per Gallias 
bacchantibus " and the words " Perdita Pyrensei custodia claustris- 
que patefactis." 

* Sozomen, ix. 11 ; 6 be [Kwi/oras] to Wvos napoKa^wv^ apxovras 
IBiovs KaT(6r]Ke Koi Secrfiiovs avrm dxdrjvai irpocreTa^e AiSvixov Koi Bepeviavov, 
Tovs 'Ovapiov a-vyyevf'ii. Surely this sounds more like orders given 
by Constantine to his son on his setting out from Gaul. 

t The passages in the Notitia (§ 38) about these Honoriaci — 
Honoriani, as in the record, is doubtless the more correct form — are 
discussed by Gibbon, ch. xxx. note 99 (v. 224) ; Wietersheim, ii. 162; 
Hodgkin, i. 743, n. The name shows that they could not be 



76 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

him the British general Gerontius, and he took with 
him also as a civil lieutenant a man chiefly memor- 
able as the forefather of one of his own descendants. 
Apollinaris, grandfather of the famous Sidonius of 
Auvergne, came of a senatorial house which ranked 
high among the nobility of his own province and of 
all Gaul. The highest office in the Western lands, 
the praetorian prsefecture of the Gauls, was almost 
hereditary in his house. But he was the first of his 
line, as his admiring grandson tells us, to embrace 
the new creed of the Empire and to have the cross 
signed upon his brow *. He did not scruple to accept 

regiments of very long standing : says Wietersheim. Gibbon must 
have been smiling when he suggested that the Scots were "influenced 
by any partial aflfection for a British prince." Wietersheim lays the 
seat of war on the west coast, and supposes that the march of 
Constans was made in connexion with a landing by sea, which is 
not mentioned in our authorities. [Mr. Hodgkin believes that the 
" Honorians " did not form " one division of the army," nor " ever 
necessarily acted together."] 

* Zosimos, VI. 4 ; a-Tparriyov fieu TepevTiov e^oiv, ' AnoWivdpiov 8e t^s 
avXiis vnapxov. For Terentius, who does not appear in any other 
part of the story, I venture to read Gerontius. 

Sidonius speaks of his grandfather, Ep. iii. 12 (iii. 1 Baret) and 
V. 9 (v. 20 Baret), in the former of which letters he gives his 
epitaph. Some of the lines run ; 

" Prsefectus jacet hie Apollinaris 
Post praetoria recta Galliarum. 
Moerentis patriae sinu receptus, 
Consultissimus utilissimusque 
Euris, militise, forique cultor, 
Exemploque aliis periculoso 
Liber sub dominantibus tyrannis. 
Hoc sed maxima dignitas probatur, 
Quod frontem cruce, membra fonte, purgans 



II.] A Tyrant of the West. 77 

his office, seemingly as the successor of Limenius, at 
the hands of the actual ruler of Gaul, and to help 
that ruler's son in his attempt to add Spain to his 
father's dominion. The adhesion of such a man to 
the cause of Constantino is the best witness to the 
general acquiescence, to say the least, of the Gaulish 
lands in the transfer of Imperial power to his hands. 
The joint march of Constans, Gerontius, and Apol- 
linaris was met at some stage, seemingly on the 
Spanish side of the Pyrenees, by an irregular army 
of slaves and peasants, a force which Didymus and 
Yerenianus had seemingly kept for some while at 
their own cost *. Their object was to bar the passes 
of the Pyrenees against the invaders from Gaul, 
a work for which Spanish guerrilla troops would be 
excellently fitted in any age. For this it would 
seem they came too late. Their efforts were indeed 
not wholly without success ; they are vaguely said to 
have put Constans in great danger f. But in the 
end they were routed, and their leaders, Didymus 
and Yerenianus, were taken prisoners, with their 

Primus de numero patrum suorum 
Sacris sacrilegis renuntiavit," 

In the other letter he tells us how ApoUinaris and his friend 
Eusticus " in Constantino inconstantiam, in Jovino facilitatem, in 
Gerontio perfidiam, singula in singulis, omnia in Dardano crimina 
simul exsecrarentur." He goes on to mention the offices of his 
father and his friend of the next generation under Honorius and 
Valentinian the Third, when " unus Galliarum prsefuit parti, alter 
soliditati" — the " soliditas," one would think, only of so much as 
was left. 

* See the passage from Sozomen quoted in note, p. 66. 

t See the passage from Orosius quoted in note, p. 66. 



78 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [ii. 

wives. The other brothers, who were in some other 
part of Spain, took fright at the fate of their kins- 
men, and fled, Theodosiolus to Honorius in Italy and 
Lagodios to Constantinople *. He could hardly have 
got thither till the latter part of the year 408, when 
he found the young Theodosius already the only 
Emperor in the East. 

Constans now, as a Caesar ruling in Spain, estab- 
lished his court at Cassaraugusta, the modern 
Zaragoza, a choice not unconnected with the greater 
events which we shall presently mention. He had 
so utterly cast aside his monastic vows that he had 
taken to him a wife ; whether he had brought her 
with him to Spain or had found her there, we are not 
told. He was now summoned by his father into 
Gaul to discuss the afiairs of their common Empire. 
He obeyed ; he left his wife in his Csesarean palace 
at Zaragoza, and entrusted Gerontius with, the com- 
mand of the Honorian troops and with the defence 
of Spain. He then hastened to his father, taking 
with him the captive kinsmen of Honorius, Didy- 
mus and Verenianus. They were presently put 
to death by order of Constantino ; of the fate of 
the wives who shared their captivity we hear 
nothing f. 

Zosimos, vi. 4 ; onep dKrjKoores ol tovtodv abehf^oi Qeohoaios re Koi 
Aaya>8ios, 6 (lev fts rrjP 'iraKiav 8i€(f)vyev, 6 8e els r^v iaav Staa-ai&els 
dvtxo>pr]cr€. S6zomen, ix. 12 ; eV irepais Se fnapxiais biarpi^ovres Qfo- 
8oaia>kos Koi AayatSios ol airSiv a.8e\(f)ol <f>evyov(rt, rfjv irarpiba, (cat 8iatru>- 
(pvrai, QeodoaioKos pev els 'iraXlau npos 'Ova>piov tov ^aaiKea, AaywStoi 
8e npos Qeoboatov fls dvaroXrfv. I cannot think, with Gibbon, that 
these two brothers had any share in the war. 

t Orosius at this point tells us nothing of the doings of Con- 



II,] A Tyrant of the West. 79 

Constantine was thus, to all appearance, undis- 
puted ruler of Spain and of so much of Gaul as the 
Vandals, Suevians, and Alans were not at any par- 
ticular moment laying waste. In the lands on the 
Khone the retreat of Sarus had left him without 
a rival. But he was at this moment the only repre- 
sentative of Eoman power beyond the Alps. His 
position in the Western world was clearly better 
than that of the Augustus at Kavenna, threatened 
every moment by Alaric, and now left without the 
arm of Stilicho to guard him. That Honorius should 
outlive both Alaric and Constantine, that he should 
die an undisputed Emperor, master of so much of the 

stantine and Constans. He is carried away from the subject by 
a torrent, partly of declamation, partly of valuable historical matter, 
to which we shall have to look presently. From Sozomen we 
might almost have fancied that Didymus and Vereniauus were put 
to death in Spain. See the passage, ix. 11, quoted in note, p. 66. 

He now goes on ; 'O fitv Kavcrras TaiiTa bunrpa^afiepos, inavrjXde npos 
TOP irarepaj (f>povpav KaTacrTTj(ras dno ratv (TTpanaTaiv t^s e;ri Tijs Siravias 
napoBov. Z6simos (vi. 5) is clear ; Tavra Kara rfiv 'l^tjpiav 6 Kavarai 
8ian pa^d/Jievos iTravrjXde irpos rbv irarepa iavTov KavarapTivov, fwayojMevos 
Beprjviavop Kal ^ibvpiov, KaraXnrav re avTodi tov arpaTtjyov Tepovrioi/, ay.a 
Tois diro roKarlas orpaTiaTais, ({)v\aKa t^s dno KeXrav eVt t^v ^I^ijpiav 
irapodov . . . Bepijviapos ptv ovv koi Ai8vfiios as KcovaravTlvov d)(d4vTiS 

dvTjpe'dr](rav napaxp^fia. These troops from Gaul are clearly the 
Honorians, of whom, as we shall presently see, Orosius has much 
to say at this point. We have also got the help of one of the 
fragments of the otherwise unknown writer — Henatus Profuturus 
Frigeridus, preserved to us by Gregory of Tours, ii. 9 ; " Accito 
Constantinus tyrannus de Hispaniis Constante filio iterumque 
tyranno, quo de summa rerum consultarent praesentes ; quo factum 
est ut Constans, iustrumento aulae et conjuge sua Caesaraugust^ 
dimissis, Gerontio inter Hispanias omnibus creditis ad patrem 
continuato itinere decurreret." 



80 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 



West as was still left to Borne, and that the power 
of Kome should be yet restored over no small part of 
the West from which it seemed to have passed away, 
is one of the strangest things in the strange times 
which we are studying. 



III. 



[CONSTANTINE EMPEROR AND MAXIMUS TYRANT.] 

We left Constantine undisputed master, undis- 
puted emperor, within so much of Gaul and Spain 
as obeyed any Emperor at all. Some parts of those 
lands were still harried at pleasure by detachments 
of the great host that had crossed the Ehine on the 
last day of the year 406. Some parts, it may be, 
were throwing off the dominion of Kome altogether. 
Britain, the land from which Constantine had set 
forth, was, not so much throwing off the dominion of 
Eome, as slipping away from it without effort on 
either side. The dominions of Constantine in the 
West were painfully smaller than the dominions of 
Valentinian and Theodosius. But within them he 
had no Eoman rival. The master of Italy, far less 
master in Italy than Constantine was in Gaul, had 
striven to shake his throne, and he had failed. 
Throughout the provinces beyond the Alps, the 
adventurer from Britain, like other adventurers from 
Britain before him, was " Dominus Noster ; " he was 
Augustus, he was "Pius," "Felix," and "Pater Patriae." 
As such his name was graven on inscriptions; his 

G 



82 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

image and superscription was, in all the Western lands, 
the image and superscription of Caesar. What then 
was lacking to him ? Something which it is not easy 
to define. With all his success, he was still, in the 
eyes of men of his own time, as he abides in the 
pages of history, Constantine the Tyrant. In using 
that name in these ages, just as in using it in the 
days of the old Greek commonwealths, we must 
throw aside that modern abuse of it by which it 
is vaguely applied to any ruler whom it is meant 
to brand as an oppressor. This abuse is closely 
allied to the kindred abuse of other technical terms 
of Greek and Roman politics, which make it dan- 
gerous, even in writing Greek or Eoman history, 
to use the original words in their original meaning 
without some kind of qualification. At least from 
the days of Herodotus to the days of William of 
Malmesbury, the word " tyrant " had a definite mean- 
ing; and it is wonderful to see how little the 
meaning of the word in William of Malmesbury has 
changed from its meaning in Herodotus. The change 
in the use of the word is simply the change which 
is implied in a changed state of things. A tyrant 
is one who takes to himself power without any 
lawful claim to take it. The name has nothing 
to do with his use of power when he gets it. 
Undoubtedly he who gains power wrongfully is under 
many temptations to use it badly; but his using 
of it badly is not implied in the mere name of tyrant. 
The Greek tyrants, as a rule, were oppressors ; but 
even among them the rule was not universal ; there 
is no contradiction in terms in speaking of a just 



Ill,] Constantine and Maximus. 83 

and merciful tyrant *. The Roman rulers to whom 
the name was transferred by a happy analogy, 
hold a higher place ; they are average Emperors, 
good or bad as may happen. The difference between 
the Greek and the Roman use comes from the 
different shapes which the tyranny, that is the un- 
lawful assumption of power, took among the Greek 
commonwealths and under the Roman Empire. The 
Greek tyrant had overthrown a commonwealth ; 
even if it was an oligarchy and not a free democracy 
that he had overthrown, even if a large part of the 
community welcomed him as the destroyer of oli- 
garchy, he had still overthrown a commonwealth ; 
he had put his own personal will in the place of 
a svstem of law and order of some kind ; and if he 
himself sometimes kept his popularity for life, all 
traces of good will commonly vanished under the 
rule of his son. That such a tyrant had no means 
of giving a formal legitimacy to his power is clear 
on the face of things. When tyrants of exactly 
the same kind, tyrants of cities, again showed them- 
selves in the commonwealths of mediaeval Italy, the 
means of thus wiping out the original stain was 
supplied by the power of the Emperor, supreme 
over all. Not a few of the hereditary dukes and 
marquesses of Italy were tyrants whom the Imperial 
authority had raised to the rank of lawful princes. 
But the old Greek commonwealths knew no overlord ; 
there was no external power that could change 
Polykrates or Peisistratos into an outwardly lawful 

* As for instance Strabo (xiii. p. 631) speaks of the tyrants of 
Kibyra ; ervpapvelro be del' awc^povas de o/nws. 

G 2 



84 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

ruler of Samos or of Athens. It is perfectly plain 
that the tyrants of the sixth and fifth centuries 
before Christ were well pleased to be spoken of as 
fiacriXevs and that flatterers in prose and verse won 
their favour by so speaking of them. It is not clear 
that any tyrant before Agathokl^s received or as- 
sumed the title in any formal way*. In his day 
the rise of the various Macedonian princes had made 
kingship familiar to Greek thought. The Koman 
tyrant, on the other hand, though he came under 
the same definition as having taken power to himself 
without lawful authority, had reached power in 
a very different way from his Greek predecessor. He 
had in no way changed the constitution of the state. 
He had neither suppressed a democracy nor delivered 
men from an oligarchy. He had simply set up his 
own power instead of the power of some other prince, 
and there was no presumption that his rule would 
be any worse than that of the prince whom he 
supplanted. He was guilty of whatever amount of 
human suffering was caused by a revolution wrought 
by violence ; he was not guilty of any general dis- 
turbance of the order of things. And it was easy 
for him, as it was not for the Greek tyrant, to 

* I except the case of any cities where the old lawful kingship 
or some survival of it may have gone on, a point which I may have 
to discuss elsewhere. See also Plass, Die Tyrannis, i. 262. I doubt 
if the first Hieron, for instance, was called ^aaiXevs by any but 
flatterers, Pindar and others. The saying of Diodoros (xi. 26 
[see my Hist. Sic. vol. II. Appendices I. and XIII.]) about Gelon 
hardly proves it. On the other hand the second Hieron was 
undoubtedly jSao-iAeus by a real popular vote. Kingship had then 
become familiar. 



III.] Constantine and Maxzmus. 85 

obtain a formal and regular confirmation of his 
authority. In the middle of the third century the 
most common way of reaching Empire was through 
the mutinies of the army. The soldiers murdered 
the reigning Emperor; they chose another in his 
place ; and the Senate presently voted him all the 
offices, powers, and titles which together made up 
the practical sovereignty of the Eoman common- 
wealth. He who received his commission from the 
senate, that extraordinary commission always renewed 
out of which the Empire grew, became a lawful 
Emperor; he who could not obtain it remained 
a tyrant. In the times which we have now reached, 
the power of the Senate has dwindled away. The 
Fathers indeed appear by fits and starts, under the 
strange circumstances of the time, with something 
nearer to their old authority than had been seen 
for a long time ; but, in the absence of any definite 
law of succession, it is no longer the vote of the 
Senate which stands forth as the main source of legiti- 
mate power. The Empire is becoming more like an 
ordinary kingdom, able to pass, either by hereditary 
descent to the children of the last prince or by 
adoption to some successor or colleague of his choosing. 
The joint rule of several princes was now familiar, 
and this system suppHed an easy means of bestowing 
formal legitimacy on a successful tyrant. When the 
tyrant had won a certain part of the Empire, and 
saw no hope of winning the rest, when the lawful 
prince kept a certain part of the Empire and saw 
no hope of winning back the rest, a compromise was 
easy. The lawful prince could admit the tyrant as his 



86 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

colleague in the Empire, and thus, while raising him 
to the same level as himself, he could keep at least 
the rank of primus inter pares. The agreement of 
course, like other agreements, needed not to be kept 
any longer than was convenient. If either of the new 
colleagues found a good opportunity of overthrowing 
his Imperial brother, of taking his dominions to 
himself or bestowing them on a colleague whom he 
liked better, that opportunity was seldom missed. 
The thing had happened over and over again. The 
lives of Carausius, of Maximus, of the great Constan- 
tine himself, supply many and instructive examples. 
Constantine then, master of E-oman Gaul and 
Spain, still felt that there was something lacking 
to his position, and he hastened to make it good. 
He had torn away the Western lands from the dominion 
of HoDorius ; the armies of Honorius had failed to 
recover the lands that he had torn away; he was 
seemingly safe in Gaul, while Honorius was anything 
but safe in Italy. Yet he now stoops, as it might 
seem to us, to ask his defeated enemy to raise him 
from his irregular position to a lawful place at his 
own side. It does indeed mark the force of tradi- 
tional feeling that Constantine, called to the throne 
by an army which had shown itself able to maintain 
him there, still felt himself the upstart, the usurper, 
the tyrant, and owned the higher position of the 
Emperor who had come to the diadem by peaceful 
means, by a line of those adoptions and associations 
of sons and colleagues which passed for lawful suc- 
cession. The tyrant therefore sought for the acknow- 
ledgement of his claims by the lawful prince ; he 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 87 

sought for his admission as a third Augustus to 
the imperial fellowship of Honorius and his young 
nephew in the East. He sent an embassy (409), an 
embassy of eunuchs — the soldiers from Britain had 
conformed to the depraved fashion of the time — to 
the court of Eavenna, asking the Emperor's forgive- 
ness for his taking on himself the imperial rank ; 
it was not, his commissioners were bidden to say, his 
own act ; the presumptuous step had been forced 
upon him by his soldiers. It is implied, though it is 
not said in so many words, that Constantine de- 
manded the confirmation of their choice, and his own 
recognition as an Imperial colleague. Honorius was 
in no position to resist or refuse ; with Alaric and 
his Goths at no great distance, it was not for him 
to plunge into another w^ar which might end as the 
enterprise of Sarus had ended '^'. A domestic reason 

* The embassy is recorded in a fragment of OlympiodSros, 

p. 450 ; "Ort Y^fuvaravTwos els Tvpavvlba apBeis Trpeo-jSeverat npos 'Ovapiov^ 
aKcav pev ku\ dnb rStv arpaTKOTcov ^laadus dnoXoyovpevos ap^ai, (rvyyvaprjv 
be alraiv, Koi ttjp ttjs ^aaiKeias d^iav Koivatviav. Koi ^aaCkevs 8ia to. 
ivearrjKOTa Bvcrx^pfj recos KaraSe'p^erai ttiv ttjs ^acriXeias Koivaviav. It IS 

here that he stops to explain how Constantine came to be tyrant, 

Kara ras BpeTTavias 8e 6 KcavaravTivos ervyxaveu dvrjpyopevpevos, (TTaaei 
tS)v eKelcre (TTpaTidT&v els Tavrrjv dvrjypevos rfiv dp)(r]v. He then goes 

on with the passage quoted above. Z6sirao3 records this first 
embassy, v. 43. The last words of the chapter before fix the 
date to the eighth consulship of Honorius and third of Theodosius, 
that is the year 409 ; eVi Tovra KmvdTavTivos 6 rvpawos evvovxovs 
Trpos 'Ovaypiov eoTfXXf, crvyyvaprjv, alrmv eueKa tov ttju ^acriKeiav dve(T)(eadai 
Xa^elv, pT}8e yap eK -npoaipeaems ekecrdai ravTqv, oKka avdyKrjs avT^ rrapa 
tS)V (TTpaTicoTUiV e7ra\6ei(n]s. Tavrrjs dKrjKows 6 ^atnXevs Trjs aiTTjaeas, 
dempoau re as ov pabiou avroi t&v crvv 'AXapix^ ^ap^dpcov ov Troppoi ovratv 
irepl TToKepav irepav diavoeladaij . . . evSt'Swcri rals alrTjcreatv. 



88 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

also moved him — in this matter Honorius himself 
may have exercised some measure of personal will. 
His kinsfolk were in the hands of Constantine — 
Theodosiolus had brought that news with him ; 
neither he nor Honorius knew that they had been 
actually put to death before the embassy had been sent, 
and he deemed that afavourable answer to the demands 
of their gaoler might be to their advantage*. Honorius 
therefore acknowledged the claims of Constantine ; he 
sent him a robe of the imperial purple f. The Boman 
world, so much of it as was still ruled from Eavenna, 
Constantinople, and Aries, had again three masters. 

It would seem that some formality was lacking 
in this transaction. Or it may simply be that Honorius 
was stirred to some sign of enmity when the news 
of the death of Didymus and Yerenianus reached him, 
when he thus saw how he had been in some sort 
cajoled into an acknowledgement of the tyrant of Gaul. 
It is certain that later in the year (409) Constantine 
sent another message to Eavenna, a message carried 
this time by a more honourable messenger. Its 
bearer was Jovius, who is described as a man of high 
culture and of other merits, but whom we have no 
means to identify with, or' to distinguish from, other 
bearers of his own and like names. He came to 
Honorius when that prince was not in a position to 
refuse anything ; Alaric was on the point of laying 

ZoSimOS, V. 43 J Tpoffert -ye \6yov iroiovfievos arvyyevap olneiav irapa 
Tov Tvpdvvov Karaxpyiivaiv {ovtol be rjtrav Beprjviavos Koi AibvfjLios) , . . 
tS)V fiev ovv (Tvyyepmv eveKa fj-araiav ei)(e (jipovriBa, irpo TavTrjs t^s Trpea^eias 
a'KO(T<payevTa)V, tovs 8e €vvov)(ov5 en\ tovtois a.TTiivep.TVfV. 
+ lb. ; eKirtpTTfi 8e avTw /cat ^a(ri\iKr]v eaB^ra. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 89 

siege to Eome ■^\ For the slaughter of the Spanish 
captives the new envoy made much the same excuse 
as the earlier messengers had made for Constantine's 
assumption of the diadem ; it had not been done by 
any orders of Constantine himself f. This statement 
we may venture to set down as a barefaced falsehood ; 
even the meekness of Honorius was stirred by it, 
and the words of our account seem to imply that 
the person of Jovius was in some danger. But 
the Emperor was partly at least won over by the 
arguments of the envoy. With Italy in the state 
in which it was, it would be wise for him to yield, 
and, if he, Jovius, was allowed to go back in safety 
to his master, Constantine would presently come to 
the relief of Rome at the head of the forces of Gaul 
Spain, and Britain, wherever these last were to be 
found \. 

This promise, whatever was the real purpose of 

* This second embassy comes at the beginning of the last book 

of Zosimos, vi. 1 j 'AXdpixos fieu ovv . . . eVt TTjv 'PoifiTjv rjXavve irav- 
(TTparia, rfj kot air^s TroXiopKt'g Trpoa-KapTeprjaeov. iv toiitco de irapa 
JLavaravTipov tov Tvpawr](ravTos iv KeXrois a(p'iKeTO irpos 'Ovapiov Kara 
TTpecr^elav 'lottos, Traideia Koi rais aWais dpeTals 8ia(f)epa)v, ^e^aiad^vai 
Trjv Trporepov ofioXoyrjOetirav elprjvijv, koi ap.a avyyva)p,r)v ev€Ka ttjs 
dvaipeaeas Ai8vp,iov /cat Beprjviavov rav avyyfvS>v 'Ovcapiov tov ^aaikeas 
atreip. 

t lb. ; oTTeXoyeiTO Xiyap as ov Kara irpoaipetrip di-^prjprai KcavaTavTiPov. 

X lb. J (rvvTerapayfiepov 8e top 'Opoipiov diaadfxevos, evXoyop €(pacrK€P 
eivcu Tols Trepl ttjp 'irdXlap evaaxoXovfiepa (f>povTi<riP epBovvai' a-vy- 
Xotpovfiepos 8e Trpos KapaTaPTlvov iKbrj/irja-ai Koi to. avvexopra 
TTjP iTokiap dyyelXaf fier ou noXii Koi avrov ^$eiv dp.a iravri rw ev 
KsKtoIs Koi iv 'ijSripia Koi ei» rij BperapviK^ vr)cr<a (TTpaTev/MaTi Tois koto, ttjv 
'irdKiav (cat 'Pafir]v ^OTjdrja-oPTa ireptaTaa-ea-i. koi 6 fiiv lottos cttI 
TOVTOis dvaf^copeiv iireTpdivri. 



90 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

Constantine in making it, leads us for a moment 
into the midst of the affairs of Italy. We are, as 
we have seen, in the memorable year (409) of Alaric's 
second siege of Eome, at that stage of it when the 
successive ministers or masters of Honorius are 
stepping into one another's places with amazing 
speed. The eunuch Eusebius has become the Em- 
peror's chief chamberlain, and Allobich, a barbarian, 
perhaps a Frank, has been placed in command of the 
E-oman cavalry. The chief authority at Ravenna 
is naturally in the hands of the eunuch ; but the 
brute force of the master of the horse prevails over 
the subtler influence of the chamberlain ; when the 
colleagues no longer agree, Eusebius is publicly 
beaten to death with rods under the eyes of Honorius*. 

* Our nan*ative has at this point to be put together from, three 
sources, Olympiodoros, Zosimos, and Sozomen, each of whom fills 
up gaps in the other, without contradicting. We must remember 
that both Zosimos and Sozomen had most likely read Olympiodoros 
in a more perfect state. Neither Orosius nor the Annalists help 
us just now, and Eenatus Profuturus Frigeridus tells us only 
(Greg. Tur. ii. 9) that Constantine at this moment had " nullum ex 
Italia metum." 

The exaltation of Eusebius is mentioned by Olympiodoros (p. 452), 
who does not mention that of Allobich, which is recorded by 
Zosimos, V. 48. But Zosimos does not mention the fate either of 
Eusebius or of Allobich. His account is ; KaraaTria-as 8e 6 ^aaiKei/s 
|_ Ovupiosj "Evae^iov fj-ev avrl Tepevriov (piiXaKa tov koitoovos . . . Koi fiera 
BiyeXavTiov AWo^i^ov nrnapxov KaTaarfjcras, ttjv fiev tS>v aTparicDTatv 
■naveiv ttcos e^o^e araa-cv. Olympiodoros says ; fifTepxerai Kara ttju 
Pa^evvav eTTt rov Trpanroo'iTov 'Evcre^iov ^ bwacrTela. os pera iKavof xpovov 
AXko^i)^ov iiTrjpeia Koi vnodfjKTj 8T]po(Tta aal iir o-^eai rov ^aaiKecos pa/SSots 

avaipe'irai. Avvaareia is a remarkable word to be used of the 
ascendency of a minister, even of an eunuch under Honorius. 



TIL] Constantine and Maximus. 91 

At this moment Constantine steps in ; we read in 
two independent narratives that he entered Italy 
with an army; but we get exactly opposite state- 
ments as to the motive which took him thither. 
In one version he is marching to Eavenna, to confirm 
or to carry out his engagements with Honorius, that 
is doubtless to give help to his Italian colleague 
against the Goth *. In the other version the master 
of Gaul and Spain sets out to add Italy to his 
dominions f. We may therefore assume with safety 
that the one version represents the purpose that was 
openly avowed, and the other the purpose which was 
commonly suspected. There is no reason to suppose 
any open breach with Honorius so soon after the 

npatrroViTos should be noticed as one of the Latin official names 
which were creeping into Greek, though as yet sparingly. The 
exact force of vivo6r]Kr] hr\\iouia I do not profess to understand, any 
more than Labbe did. 

* So says Olympiodoros, p. 452 ; KtBvorami'oy 6 rvpawos . . . 
eTreiyonevos irpbs 'Pd^ewav &aT€ aireia-aadai 'Ovcoplco. This was doubtless 
what was given out publicly. 

t Sozomen, ix. 12 ; KavaravTlvos reas kcto. yvafirfv iipaTTeiv 8okS)V, 
KcovcrraVTa tov viov avTi Kaicrapos ^acriKea Karaarriaas, e^ovXfvero tt)V 

'iroKiav KaToKa^eiv. That was doubtless what the court of Eavenna 
feared. 

It certainly seems strange that Gregory's authority, Eenatus 
Profuturus Frigeridus, altogether leaves out Constantine's Italian 
expedition. It is just when it should come that he tells us (Greg. 
Tur. ii. 9) that Constantine was "gulae et ventri deditus," having 
" nullum ex Italia metum." Does that mean after his return from 
Italy ] 

I do not see on what ground Wietersheim (ii. 166) places the 
Italian expedition in 410. Surely the whole story of Eusebius 
and Allobich fixes it to 409, while Alaric was still only threatening 
Eome. 



92 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

second embassy. Constantine appears to have as- 
sumed the consulship in partnership with Honorius * ; 
and on the whole it is most likely that it was now, 
when he was at the height of his power, that he 
raised his son CoDstans, who might pass for the 
conqueror of Spain, from the rank of Csesar to that 
of Augustus f. There would thus be four acknow- 

* I miglit not have found out this consulship of Honorius and 
Constantine, which is not to be found in any fasti and which was 
most likely unheard of outside of Constantine' s dominions, but from 
the mention of it by Tillemont, v. 570, and the references there 
given. The insci'iption which is given in Gruter 1072 comes from 
the church of Saint PauUinus at Trier, and, being in Greek, throws, 
as usual, some light on the spelling and pronunciation of that 
tongue. It runs thus ; 

ENGA . KEITE • EYCEBIA • EN 

EIPHNHI . OYCA • lEPOKfiMITI • 

AHO . 1 . KfiMHC AAAANQN ZHCAC 

HMEP • O nPOC . ETQN T • EN 

YHATEIA . ONOPIOY TO H • KAI 

KQNCTANTINOY • TO • A • MHNI 

HANHMOY "ii . HMEPA • 

KI . B • EN EIPHNH. 
The year is 409. One must suppose that Constantine, on receiving 
the purple from Honorius, declared himself consul, without regard 
to the rights of Theodosius. 

How much lost history might have been kept if all makers of 
epitaphs had put the consuls. 

t So says Sozomen in the passage (ix. 12) quoted above, where 
he distinctly places it before the Italian expedition of Constantine. 
I am not sure that this is really contradicted by Zosimos, who does 
not mention that expedition, when he says (vi. 13), after recording 
the hostageship of Placidius, to /xev Kara ttjv 'iraXiav kv tovtois ^V 
KcovarapTipos 6e tw 7rai6i Kavara ro Bidbrifia irepideis Koi avrl tov Kaiaapos 
jSao'tXeu TrerroiriKas, ATroWivdpiov TrapaXvaas Trjs dp)^rjs erepov dvT avTOV 

vnapxop Inedei^ev. Sozomen's date seems more distinctly given as 



i 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 93 

ledged Imperial colleagues, Ilonorius, Theodosius, 
Constantine, and Constans ; the making of Emperors 
was still for a moment in Eoman hands ; it was very 
soon to pass to the Goth. 

Thus, in all outward seeming, help was coming 
from Aries to Eavenna. But it was deemed at the 
court of Eavenna that such help was likely to be 
dangerous; it was believed that there were high 
officials about the Italian Augustus who were ready 
to displace him in favour of his Gaulish brother. 
Allobich, slayer of Eusebius, had won power, but not 
confidence ; he was suspected of being in league with 
Constantine to transfer to him the whole dominion 
of the West*. It would seem that Honorius, as 
princes sometimes do, conspired against his minister 
and found instruments ready to rid him of the 
suspected traitor. An opportunity was found as 
Allobich was riding, according to custom, in a solemn 
procession before his sovereign. Allobich Avas cut 
down by the loyal assassins, and the Emperor, 
springing down from his horse, gave God thanks in 
the hearing of all men for having preserved him 
from a manifest traitor f. So sultan-like had the 

a date, while that of Zosimos comes in more casually. And 
Olympiodoros (p. 453), though he too only mentions the matter 
incidentally, clearly places it before the revolt of Gerontius. 
That revolt took place Kava-ravrivov rov Tvpdvvov Koi KavaravTOs tov 
TraiSos, OS Trporepou fiev Kaia-ap, eTreira 8e Koi /Sao-iXevs eKex^ipOTOvrjTO, 
TovTCiv r]TTr]6ivT(i>v Koi Tre(f)evy6TO)v, 

* Sozomen, ix. 12; ov \^AW6^ixov] 817 (rrparriyov 'Ovmplov ovra koL 
VTTOTTTOV 0)5 Kwi/oTajTiVo) TTpaypaTevojj.evQV naaav rf/v Trpbs Tr\v ov<nv 
fiyepov'iav. 

t Olympiodoros (p. 452) records the death of Allobich ; 'AXXd- 



94 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

dominion of Eome become that murder was the only 
way to forestall or to avenge murder. The truth 
of the suspicion against AUobich seems to be con- 
firmed by the fact that Constantine, when he heard 
of his death on his march, turned back, as if his 
schemes had become altogether hopeless now that 
his confederate was gone. He had crossed the 
Cottian Alps and had kept on the left side of the Po 
till he reached Verona. He was making ready to 
turn southward, and to cross the river on his way 
to Eavenna, when the news of Allobich's death met 
him. He then went back by the way by which he 
had come, to find troubles enough in the lands of 
which he was supposed to be the ruler without 
adding the defence of Italy against Alaric to his 
other difficulties *. 

His troubles indeed had begun before he started 
for Eavenna. Spain had quietly submitted to the 

^iX,os fiera /3jOa;^v, rrjv icji a tov irpanrocriTov Evcre^iov dveTKe S/kjji/ tivwv, 
yvafirj TOV ISaaiKeas Kara irpoaairov avrov avaipelrai. Sozomen (ix. 1 2) 
giyes the details ; dvaipfd^vai a-we^rj rare ^Tov 'AWo^ixov], Trporjyov- 
fievov, as edos, inaviovTos i< rrpoohov tivos rov KparovvTos. fjviKa 8fj Koi 
6 ^aaiXevs airiKa rov trnrov dno^as, trjpoaria ev-)(api(TTr]pia tw Bern 
Tjii^aTo, as 7rpocf>avovs eni^ovXov oTraXXayety. 'O Kparmv seems an 
odd word for the Emperor. On this, passage Gibbon (vol. v. 
p. 289) remarks that the " assassination of Allobich, in the midst 
of a public procession, is the only circumstance of his life in 
which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or 
resentment." 

* 01ympiod6ros, p. 452 ; KavaravTlvos . . . t6v 'AXKo^ixov davarov 
liaBav . . . (})o^r]6f\s VTTotTTpecjiei. Sozomen, ix. 12 ; irapapd^as ras 
KoTTias AXTTcts, riKev els Ai^epSiva ttoKiv rrjs Aiyovpias. ixeXXcov 8e 
Trepaiovadai tov 'Hpi8av6v, t^v avTrju oSof dve(rTpe(f)e, fiaBoav tov 'AXKofiixov 
Bavarov , . . Kcovo-tuvt'ivos 8e (pevycov Tfju 'AprjXaTov KaTfXaj3e. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 95 

change of rulers in the first instance, and the land 
might, it would seem, have settled down quietly 
again after the movement of the kinsmen of Honorius, 
if the new administration had not wounded local 
feeling in a very tender point, Spain, as we have 
seen, had been used to be defended by the arms of 
her own children. . The legions that served in Spain 
had been Spanish legions, and the keeping of the 
Pyrensean passes had been by usage entrusted to 
what we may call a national militia. Spain had no 
frontiers through which the barbarians could make 
their way ; she was not therefore, like Italy and the 
East, accustomed to have her borders guarded by one 
body of barbarians hired to keep out another body of 
their fellows. But now Constantine and Constans 
were guilty of the fatal, yet not unnatural, mistake 
of removing the local force, and entrusting the moun- 
tain passes to the keeping of their own barbarian 
allies, the Honorians. These troops were further 
indulged, by their commander Gerontius, it would 
seem in excessive licence in the way of plunder ; they 
were above all allowed to harry the district of Valentia, 
which, doubtless as having supported the cause of 
Didymus and Verenianus, was dealt with as an 
enemy's country. The demand of the Spanish legions 
that the barbarians might be withdrawn, and the old 
state of things restored, was refused, and great dis- 
content arose *, To quiet or suppress that discontent 

* This very interesting notice of tlie local usages of tlie Spanish 
provinces comes in different shapes from Z6simos, Orosius, and 
S&zomen. The first of these (vi. 5), to the passage quoted above 
p. 75, mentioning Gerontius as left in command in Spain, adds,, 



96 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iil. 

the new Augustus Constans was sent. He went, as 
far as we can see from our fragmentary authorities, 
about the time of his father's Italian expedition. It 
is plain that the Spanish troubles were laid to the 
charge of the officers whom Constans had left to 
represent his father in the peninsula. He now took 
with him a general named Justus, destined, it would 
seem, to supplant Gerontius, while ApoUinaris lost 
his office of Prsefect, which was bestowed on a certain 
Decimius Eusticus, who had hitherto been Master of 
the Offices *. The wrath of Gerontius was naturally 

KaiToi ye ratv iv 'l^rjpla aTpaTOTreSatv ifnncrrevdrjval Kara to (rvmjdes Tr]V 
<pvkaiCT]v alTTjaavToyv, koI firj ^evots encTpaTTrjvat rfjv Trjs x^P^^ d(r<f}aXeiav. 
So Sozomen (ix. 12), 6 fiev Katva-ras . . . inavrjKQe irphs tov Trarepa, 
(j)povpav KaraaTTjcras ano rasv arpaTuoTav, rris enl ras Snavias irap68ov, t]v 
8eop.evois ^Trdvois Kara to dpxaiov edos cfyvXaTreiv ovk inerpe^ev. But 
the most graphic picture is that of Orosius, vii. 40. After the 
passage quoted on p. 66 he goes on ; " His barbaris [Honoriacis] 
quasi in pretium victorise praedandi in Palatinis campis licentia 
data : dehinc supradicti montis claustrorumque eis cura permissa 
est, remota rusticanorum fideli et utili custodia. Igitur Honoriaci 
imbuti prseda et illecti abundantia," &c. 

* This has to be put together in a curious way. In Zosimos, 
vi. 5, we read, Kmva-Tas avdis VTTO TOV TTOTpos els ttjv ^l^rjplav eKTre/iTrerat, 
'lovarov eTtayofievos. It is only later, in connexion with the appoint- 
ment of Constans as Augustus, that he mentions (vi. 13, see note 
above) the deposition of ApoUinaris. Yet we have seen that the 
appointment of Constans must have come earlier than it is placed 
by Zosimos, and the substitution of new officers for Gerontius and 
for ApoUinaris is likely to have been at the same time. It is not 
so much that the chronology of Zosimos is really confused as that he 
mentions things when they happen to come into his head without 
regard to order. The name of the successor of ApoUinaris comes 
from a notice of Eenatus Profuturus Frigeridus (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) 
a little later; " Prsefectus jam Decimius Eusticus ex oflficiorum 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 97 

kindled, and he would seem, so far as we can make 
out from most unsatisfactory records of most im- 
portant events, to have entered on a scheme of 
treason of the widest kind, which in its results 
changed the whole history of Western Europe. He 
leagued himself with the barbarians. Vandals, Alans, 
and Suevians, who had been laying waste the greater 
part of Gaul for the last two years. He seems to have 
bound himself to them (409) by some kind of formal 
treaty *. How far it amounted to a regular partition 

magistro." This deposition of his grandfather may have been one 
reason why Sidonius speaks of the inconstancy of Constantine (see 
the passage quoted above). It is on more public grounds that 
Orosius (vii. 40) brands him as " sine merito virtutis." 

* It is not easy just now to fit events into their exact order, as 
whether the proclamation of Maximus, which is not dated, came 
before the barbarian invasion of Spain which is fixed to the 
autumn of 409 or after it (see Wietersheim, ii. 162). I should 
think that the proclamation came first. The only thing against 
it is the order of events in Sozomen ; but none of the writers 
whom we have to follow attend to strict chronological order ; one 
thing is suggested by another, and out it comes, whether in exact 
order or not. But the connexion of the two things, that both 
formed parts of one scheme, that Gerontius, to secure himself 
against Constantice, favoured the coming of the barbarians into 
the peninsula, that he even made a treaty with them, are things 
which seem distinctly made out. 

Sozomen (ix. 12, 13) is not very clear either in his order of 
facts or in his notions of causes. After the passage quoted above 
he goes on, 6 koI alnov yeyove fitra ravra rrji dnaXeias rav Trjde' Kara- 
TreaovaTjs yap rrjs Kcavaravrivov Bvvdfieas, dvaXa^ovres eavTovs Ovavda\oi 
re KOI Sovt^oi Kai 'AXai/oi, e6vt] ^dp^apa, t^s irap68ov eKparrjaav, Koi 
TToXXa ^povpia kui TToXeis rav 'lanavSiv koi TaXarav flKov koI tovs 

apxovras rov Tvpdvvov. He then gives the account of Constantino's 
expedition to Italy, as already quoted. The words cited in the 

H 



98 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

of Spain it is impossible to say; but the practical 
result was that, very much as in the case of Gaul, the 
Eoman authority was kept up in a corner of the land, 
while the rest was left to the mercy of the invaders. 
But the representation of Eoman authority in Spain, 
as it had passed from Honorius to Constantino, was 
now to pass from Constantino to Gerontius or to any 

note on p. 91 are followed by a slight reference to the presence of 
Constans in Spain, KaTO. tovtov fie koI KdvcTTas 6 avrov nals (pevymv e/c 
Trjs 'la-Travlas. He then again tells of the barbarian invasion, partly 
in the same words as before but more carefully; KaraTTea-oiicrTjs yap 
Ttjs KcovaravTivov bvvdfieai, dvaXa^ovres eavTovs Ovavdakoi re koX ^ovi^oi 
Koi 'A\avo\, (TTTOvB^ ro Uvprjvaiov opos KareKa^ov, evbaijxova K.a\ TrXrjcncoTa- 
Tqv TTjv ^a>pav CLKovovres. TraprjpeXrjKOTcov re tS>v eniTpaTrevTcov irapa 
KavcrravTos rfjv (ppovpav rrjs irapohov, iTaprjkdov els 'lanaviav. He then, 

at the beginning of his next chapter, records the elevation of 
Maximus as happening eV rovra. 

Sozomen here does not personally connect Gerontius with the 
barbarian entry, but he attributes it to the negligence or treachery 
of the Honorians under his command. Orosius is to the same 
effect, but somewhat more explicit. After the words cited above 
from vii. 40, he adds, "Prodita Pyrenei custodia, claustrisque 
patefactis cunctas gentes quae per Gallias vagabantur, Hispaniarum 
provinciis immittunt, iisdemque ipsi adjunguntur." 

Olympiodoros (p. 453) seems distinctly to connect Gerontius 
personally with the barbarian inroad ; TepovTios 6 arpaTrjyos rfjv 
irpos Tovs jSap^apovs dapevicras elprjvrjv, Ma^ipov . . . /SacrtXea duayopevei. 
So Zosimos, vi. 5. Constans enters Spain with Justus, e'0' m 
TepovTios a)(66pevos, Koi tovs avrodi TrepnTOLrjcrdpevos crrpaTitiTas, inaviarijcn 
KcovaravTivcp tovs ev KeXrois ^ap^dpovs. He goes On to speak of 

Constantine's dealings in return with other barbarians, but says 
nothing about Maximus. Renatus too (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) is clear 
on this head, though it is hard to work in some of the details 
of his story; "Ab Hispania nuntii commeant a Gerontio Maximum 
. . . imperio praeditum atque in se [Constantinum et Constantem] 
comitatu gentium barbararum accinctum parari." 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 99 

one whom Gerontius might think good to clothe with 
the purple. We are so seldom taken behind the 
scenes, so seldom allowed to study the motives of the 
actors in this most confused story, that we can merely 
guess why Gerontius, instead of laying claim to the 
Imperial dignity in his own person, set up a certain 
Maximus as Emperor or tyrant. The proclamation of 
some rival Emperor was his only chance ; but we can 
do no more than guess at the causes which made 
Gerontius forbear from placing the diadem on his own 
brow. We see easily why at this very moment 
Alaric w^as setting up a puppet Emperor in Italy for 
his own ends, why later in the century Eicimer set 
up and put down Emperors at pleasure. For the 
days had not yet come for an avowed barbarian to 
mount the throne of the Caesars in his own person. 
Stilicho, charged with plotting the elevation of his son 
Eucherius, is a nearer case to this of Gerontius. But 
StiHcho was said to come of the stock of the Vandals*. 
The lapse of another generation, the connexion by 
marriage between his house and that of the Emperor's, 
may have caused the son to be looked on as more 
Eoman than the father. But Gerontius would seem 
to have been a provincial of the province of Britain, 
as good a Eoman then, by the edict of Antoninus, as 
any man in Spain, Gaul, or Italy. It is therefore by 
no means easy to see, why, when he risked himself 

* If we may believe his enemy Orosius (vii. 38), " Comes 
Stilico Wandalorum imbellis, avarae, perfidse, et dolosse gentis 
genere editus." " Imbellis " at least is a strange epithet ; but 
Livy and Gregory of Tours have equally strange sayings about 
Latins and West-Goths. 

H2 ^-^fC- 



100 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

and all that belonged to him in a struggle for power, 
in a struggle against Honorius and Constantine at 
once, he did not at least run the risk on his own 
behalf and in his own name. Whatever were his 
motives, the fact is clear. It was not himself but 
Maximus whom Gerontius chose for the dangerous 
honour. But who was Maximus 1 That one among 
our authorities who is on the whole the most trust- 
worthy, but whose evidence has come down to us in 
the most fragmentary state, seems to call him the 
son of Gerontius, in which case we should have the 
closest parallel of all to the alleged designs of Stilicho. 
He was, it is said, serving among the domestics, the 
household troops doubtless of Constantine and Con- 
stans. Other writers speak more vaguely of Maximus 
as a friend or dependant of Gerontius. In any case, 
just as with Constantine himself, the name of the 
renowned British tyrant of the last century may have 
gone some way towards securing his elevation, though 
we are also told that Gerontius deemed him a man 
personally fit for the post*. Maximus therefore 

* 01ympiod6ros (453) calls Maximus the son of Gerontius; 
Ma^t/Ltof Tov eavTov Traiba, els ttju bofieariKoiv rd^iv reXovvra, ^aaiXea 
avayopevei. Sozomen's account (ix. 1 3) is, TepovTios 6 tS>p Kmva-TavTivov 
(TTparrjywv apiaros, 8v(Tpevfjs avrSt yiyovev, eTTiTrjdfiou re tls Tvpavviba 
Md^ipop TOV avTov olKelov vofiLcras, ^acrCKiKr^v iveSvaev e(r6rJTa. Renatus, 
in the passage before quoted, calls him " Maximum, unum e 
clientibus suis." Wietersheim prefers the witness of Olympiodoros, 
which is doubtless the best in itself. But it is hard to see how 
a son could be mistaken for anything else^ while a stranger might 
be more easily mistaken for a son. Orosius (vii. 42) puts the whole 
story of Gerontius and Maximus out of date ; " Constantem filium 
Constantini Gerontius comes suus, vir nequam, magis quam probus, 
apud Viennam interfecit, atque in ejus locum Maximum quemdam 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. loi 

assumed the purple and held his court at Tarragona*. 
Master of at least the north-eastern corner of Spain, 
he found himself better able to maintain his authority 
against other representatives of the Koman power 
than he was against the common enemies of the 
Eoman name. 

We cannot have a better illustration of the way in 
which these tyrants rose and fell than in the story 
of Gerontius, a story full of striking adventure, on 
which we have now entered. As Constantine has 
done by Honorius, so Gerontius now does by Con- 
stantine. All alike are Emperors to those who accept 
their dominion, tyrants to all beyond its bounds. 
The truth is that, during the whole life of the 
Eoman power, down to the disputes of a Palaiologos 
and a Kantakouzenos, the only chance for a man 
at the head of an army who had fallen under the 
suspicion of the master whom he was supposed to 
serve was to assume the purple himself It v/as 
a frightful risk ; but he might succeed ; otherwise 
he had no hope. Thus the Empire was torn in pieces 
by the personal interests of particular men, at 
a moment when no one frontier was safe against 
foreign enemies. Yet the wonderful thing is how 
often the Empire came together again. What strikes 
us at every step in the tangled history of these times 

substituit." This account would be true, if only tbe order of the 
two facts was turned about. This neglect of chronology comes of 
the fact that Orosius, after recording the events at the Pyrenees, 
goes off into an edifying discourse on the doings of tlie barbarians 
in Spain, and now comes back to give a " catalogus tyrannorum." 
* S6zomen, U. S. ; eV TapuKovrj bidyeiv e'iaa-ev. 



102 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

is the wonderful life which the Koman name and 
the Koman power still kept when it was thus 
attacked on every side from without and torn in 
pieces in every quarter from within. The personal 
good luck of Honorius has been noticed both in older 
and in later times*; like the Persian conqueror of 
old, he overcame most of his enemies without stirring 
from his hearth t, and those whom he could not over- 
come he at least outlived. But the good luck, if not 
of the local Rome, at least of the wider Romania, is 
still more to be noticed. Whatever blows fall, some- 
thing escapes, and that something commonly lives ; 
it grows again, and wins back part at least of what 
had been lost. At this moment the whole West is 
overrun by barbarian invasion. Britain falls away; 
Gaul is ravaged from the Rhine to the Pyrenees ; 
the greater part of Spain, as we shall presently see, 
is cut up into barbarian kingdoms. By a blow more 
striking and terrible than all in its historic and 
dramatic aspect, Rome itself has been entered and 
sacked by a barbarian enemy. Yet the Roman name 
and the Roman power live on. The dominion of 
the conqueror of Rome passes to a successor who 
is ready to act as the soldier of Rome and who aspires 
to be the son and brother of her princes. While 
Italy is thus saved by the exchange of Alaric for 
Atawulf, neither Gaul nor Spain is wholly lost. 

* Sozomen (ix. 16) is strong on this head. See also Procopius, 
Bell. Vand. i. 2, and Gibbon. 
t ^sch. Pers. 860-63 ; 

oercas S' fiXf ttoXcis iropov 
ov dia^as "AXvos TroTafiolo, 

ovb d(f) iarias (rvdds. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. i03 

A corner of Gaul escapes barbarian ravage ; a corner 
of Spain escapes barbarian partition. And if at this 
moment neither Gaul nor Spain is in the obedience 
of Kavenna, if each land has its own Emperor or 
tyrant, yet the tyrants at once turn their arms against 
one another, and all presently yield to the fortunate 
star of the lawful prince. And if that lawful prince 
wins his victories by deputy, one at least of his 
enemies suffers defeat by deputy also. 

Maximus then is tyrant at this moment in Spain, 
reigning at Tarragona, but without any such acknow- 
ledgement of his position as Constantine had won 
from the unwilling Honorius. His immediate enemy 
was Constantine, whose power in Spain he had 
overthrown ; more immediately again it was Constans 
by whom his father Constantine had been represented 
in Spain. But Constans, though the greater part of 
his father's forces were under his command*, could 
not stand against the movement which had raised 
Maximus to power. He and his prsefect, Decimius 
Eusticus, who, we may gather, was specially unpopular, 
fled into Gaul to Constantine f. From his capital at 

ToO TrXeioj'os t^s Bvvdfieas fiepovs ovtos iv 'l^rjpia says Z6sim0S 
(vi. 5), but his account is confused, and lie mentions nothing of 
the acts of Constans, or indeed of Constantine, after Constans 
went into Spain with Justus. 

t It is again excessively hard to put our accounts together. 
Olympiodoros (453) tells us how, Kavaravriuov koI KwvcTTavTos . . . 
fjTTTjdevrav Koi TrecjyevyoTotv, Gerontius sets up Maximus as Emperor, 
fiVa eTTibia^as KavaravTa, KareTrpd^aTO dvaipedrjuai, Koi Kara irodas furero, 
Smokcoi; Ka\ rbv Trarepa KcovaravTlvov. One would think from this that 
Constantine as well as Constans was in Spain ; yet every other 
picture places him at Gaul, and 01ympiod6ros himself speaks of 



104 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [in. 

Aries that prince — an acknowledged colleague of 
Honorius and Theodosius — had to keep, if he could, 
so much of Gaul as was still Roman from the attack 
which was threatening from Spain. Maxim us him- 
self did not stir, any more than Honorius ; but 

him at Aries directly after. Nor would any one find out the 
presence of Constans at Vienne. Sozomen (ix. 12, 13) is a little 
clearer, though he tells his tale in a somewhat strange order. After 
the return of Constantine from Italy comes the passage cited in 
a former note ; Kcai'o-Tawti'os 6e (fifvycov ttjv 'AprjXaTou KareXajSe, Kara 
TovTov 8e KoX Kavcrras 8' avTov nais (f)evyo>v tK ttjs 'icrnavias. Then, as an 
explanation, follows his second account of the barbarian invasion 
of Spain above quoted ; then Gerontius makes Maximus Emperor 
and leaves him at Tarragona, alrhs he KavaravTlva inea-TpaTeva-ev, iv 
■7rap68a Ka>v(TTavra tov vlov airov iv Bievvrj ovra avaipedrjvai irapaa-Kevdaas, 
eVei Se efiaBe KcovaTavrlvos ra Kara Md^ifjiov, 'E86^i)^ov fiev tov avrov 
(TTpaTTjybv nepav rov 'Ftjvov TreTro/i^ev, ^pdyycov re Koi AXafiavociv avp.- 
yLa)(j.av TrpoTpeyJAajjievov, KavaTavTi 8e rat avrov TratSt Biewrjs koi Ta>v 
T^8e noXetov rr^v <pvKaKriv ineTpeyfre. Koi Tepoprtos fikv inX t^p 'AprjXarop 
iXdaas, eTToKiopicei rfjp ttoXiv. This almost reads as if it had been 
carelessly copied from two sources, one of them the same as that 
used by 01ympiod6ros. The account of Eenatus (Greg. Tur. ii. 9) 
is yet more confused. He makes Constans still with his father — 
surely in Gaul — where " ab Hispania nuntii commeant a Gerontio 
Maximum unum e clientibus suis imperio praeditum atque in 
comitatu gentium barbararum accinctum parari. Quo exterriti 
Edobeco ad Germanise gentes prsemisso, Constans et praefectus 
jam Decimius Rusticus [see above, note p. 96] ex officiorum magistro, 
petunt Gallias, cum Francis et Alamannis omnique militum manu 
ad Constantinum jamjamque redituri." Here we get some of the 
same facts as in Sozomen, but in a strange [succession]. Constans, 
who is already with his father in Gaul, is made to go into Gaul to 
seek for German allies, an errand on which Edobich is already sent. 
In the scraps that we have in Gregory, there is nothing about the 
fate of Constans, but directly after Constantine is besieged some- 
where, clearly at Aries. Olympiodoros thus fancies father and son 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. io5 

Gerontius, in league with the barbarians who had 
passed into Spain (411), bringing with bim no doubt 
not a few of them as bis alHes and soldiers*, set off to 
follow Constans, and doubtless to win the dominions 
of Constantine for the prince whom he had himself 
set up. Constantine made preparations to defend the 
cities of his dominions and to gain barbarian allies. 
On this latter errand the Frank Edobich was sent 
beyond the Ehine to collect a force both of his own 
countrymen and of the Alamans. Nearer home too 
Constantine, like his rivals, did his main work by 
deputy; he seems to have shut himself up at Aries, 
and to have entrusted the general care of his terri- 
tories to his son Constans, whose headquarters were 
at Yiennef. That post, so far from the southern 
frontier^ so far north even from Aries, seems strangely 
chosen when an invading host was actually on the 
march from Spain. To one very careful inquirer it 

to be botli in Spain, while Renatus fancies them both to be in Gaul, 
though directly after he makes Constans " petere Gallias." Sozomen 
alone brings out that Constantine had come back from Italy to Gaul, 
while Constans fled from Spain to meet him. The narrative of 
S6zomen in short hangs together, save that he oddly puts the death 
of Constans before his commission from his father, and that he 
clearly mistook the geographical relations of Aries and Vienne. The 
odd statement of Eenatus that Constans " Gallias petit" to seek for 
German allies may suggest that he was sent northward from Aries 
to co-operate in some way with Edobich. On the whole I think we 
may put together some such narrative as I have given in the text. 
The confusions in all our authorities are very wonderful, but it is 
only fair to remember that, while we have the connected work of 
Sozomen, we have only scraps of Eenatus and Olympiodoros. 

* This may be [gathered] from the words of Eenatus. 

t So I infer from Sozomen compared with Eenatus. 



106 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

has seemed so hard to believe that the tale that we 
are telling happened at Vienne that he has ventured 
to suggest that the mention of the capital of the 
Allobroges must be simply a mistake, and that the 
headquarters of Constans were really at Narbonne*. 
Truly Narbo Martins is geographically far better 
suited than Vienna Allobrogum to be the head- 
quarters of a ruler of south-eastern Gaul who is looking 
for an invasion from Spain. But it is dangerous to 
reconstruct history according to what, from a geo- 
graphical or a military point of view, ought to have 
happened. When such authorities as we have — not, 
to be sure, a Thucydides or a Procopius — place 
Constans at Vienne, I cannot take upon me arbi- 
trarily to translate him to Narbonne. And, after 
all, something might be said for the presence of the 
younger Augustus at Vienne at such a moment. The 
most natural inference is that Constantino himself 
was at Aries, that to him was left the immediate 
defence of Gaul against Maximus and his partisans, 

* SoFauriel, i. 101. The question really comes to this. Sozomen 
distinctly places this event at Vienne ; but by the use of the words 
eV irapobm he shows that he did not understand the geography of 
Vienne, while iv •napoba would exactly suit Narbonne. Is he more 
likely to have got hold of the right geography with the wrong 
name, or to have got the right name but to have confused the 
geography.? To me it seems more likely that he should have 
heard the name rightly as Vienne, but that, having no clear notion 
of the position of Vienne or of any special reasons for Constans 
being there, he should fancy that Vienne was on the natural road 
from Spain, rather than that he should get hold of the name of 
Vienne when the thing really happened at Narbonne. But every 
man must judge for himself. 



I 



III.] Constantme and Maximus. io7 



while his more enterprising son fixed himself in a city 
well fitted either as a bulwark against hostile bar- 
barians from central Gaul*, or as a trysting-place for 
friendly barbarians from beyond the Khine. And in 
the economy of things, when south-eastern Gaul was 
for a moment, as it has been in some later moments, 
the chief centre of history in lands beyond the Alps, 
when each of the great cities of the land had to stand 
a siege or to witness a revolution, it could not be that 
no place in the story should be found for so noble a city 
as the true Vienna, the city of the AUobroges, the city 
whose walls and whose churches still shelter the dust 
of more than one of the unkindly forgotten Kings of 
the Middle Kingdom. Seated, like her fellows, by 
the broad Rhone, not girded by the waters like the 
Arelate of those days, not perched on her steep like 
the Gaulish Valentia, but nestling as it were in the 
arena of an amphitheatre of hills, the great river 
itself sweeping through as if ready for the sports 
of the naumachia, Vienna could then show, whole 
and perfect, those mighty masses of brickwork whose 
ruins it is now not always easy to distinguish from the 
face of the hills that they so boldly climbed. The 
church of the Primate of Primates, the head, so men 
at Vienna deemed, of all the Burgundies, had not 
yet arisen in that vast unbroken length that took 
six centuries to lead to its full extent at either end. 
But the basilica in which Avitus ministered may well 
have been already standing, and that lovely relic 
of pagan days, second only to its fellow temple at 

* This is suggested by tlie words of Z6simos ; ('n-avlaTrja-i \rep6v- 

Ttos] KcovaTavTLVcp tovs ev KeXrois ^ap^dpovs. 



108 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

Nemausus, was there "untouched by age and havoc, 
perhaps already a house of worship of the new faith 
of Rome and Gaul. The obelisk between the walls, 
the shattered theatre within them, the amphitheatre 
whose site we now faintly trace, the whole range of 
buildings rising tier on tier, colonnade on colonnade, 
must have made Vienna a prouder city to meet the 
eyes of the advancing enemy than that he hurried 
by on the Valentine hill or even among the lagunes of 
Imperial Arelate. It was indeed a prize for kings 
to strive which Constans guarded for his father, which 
Gerontius attacked, it may be for his son. But again 
not a word is vouchsafed to us to tell how Vienna fell 
into the hands of the patron of the new tyrant of 
Spain. We know not whether the city was stormed 
or whether it surrendered. We know only that 
Constans came into the power of Gerontius, and was 
put to death by the conqueror*. 

From the city defended by the son Gerontius 
marched to the city defended, or at least dwelled in, 
by the father. The Briton who had followed Constan- 
tino from his island now laid siege to his master of 
yesterday in the august home that he had helped to 
win for him. In reading this story, the story of the 
double siege of Aries, we must bear in mind the 
topography of the country as it stood at the beginning 
of the fifth century t. The inlets of the sea, which 

* Orosius (vii. 42) ; " Constantem . . . Gerontius comes suus . . . 
apud Viennam interfecit." 

t On the ancient topography of Aries and the whole country 
generally see the works of Lentheric, specially La Grfece et 
L'Orient en Provence, chap, iii., and the plan at page 311. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. io9 

form so marked a feature on the journey from Aries 
to the Provengal Aix, were then far more numerous 
and came much further inland than thev do now ; 
and the branches of the river were then many more 
than the Great and the Little Khone that are now 
left. Aries was, then as now, parted from her great 
suburb — far greater then as the Colonia Julia Paterna 
than it is now as the Fauxbourg de Trinquetailles — by 
the main stream of the river, yoked by its bridge, 
better represented in site by the bridge that now 
carries the railway than by the bridge which forms 
the ordinary communication between city and suburb. 
But waters that are now dried up gave both city and 
suburb a peninsular shape which they keep no longer. 
The city itself was washed to the east by a deep 
inlet of the Mediterranean which formed the Statio 
N avium of Arelate. The Elysian Fields stretched their 
long hues of sarcophagi between its banks and the 
city walls that rose above them. The plain which 
reaches almost to the foot of the little Alps was 
then a sea ; the hills ciowned by the holy place of 
Montmajeur, by the giants' chamber on the height 
of Cordes, by the rock-hewn dwellings of Les Baux, 
were then islands in the water, as Avalon and its 
West-Saxon fellows still were in the days of Alfred. 
Against the city thus fenced in by art and nature 
two armies marched at the same moment, each hostile 
alike to one another and to its defenders. For while 
Gerontius was marching from Yienne by the high way 
that, like the modern railway, skirts the left, the 
eastern, bank of the river, another army was on its 
march from Italy. The lord of Kavenna, however 



110 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

unable to save Eome, could now (41 1) — when he that 
had threatened Kome had passed away, when Atawulf 
ruled the Goths in the place of Alaric — find leisure 
and means to think again of the lands beyond the 
Alps. And he had those about him who could win 
back Aries to his obedience, and who could rid him 
alike of the unwelcome colleague by whom Aries was 
defended, and of the avowed rebel by whom it was 
besieged. 

This last distinction, the fact that Constantine held 
the formal place of a lawful Augustus, must never 
be forgotten. Yet it is hardly wonderful if the 
distinction between colleague and rebel was not 
accurately drawn at the court of Eavenna. The 
acknowledgement of Constantine by Honorius as an 
Imperial colleague had hardly been an act of the 
free will either of Honorius himself or of those by 
whom he was guided. He no doubt personally felt 
some grudge against his fellow Emperor on account 
of the slaughter of his kinsmen, and none the less 
perhaps because of the pretences by which that 
slaughter had been feebly excused. And the appear- 
ance of Constantine in Italy, an appearance which 
allowed of so many interpretations, might well be 
looked on as cancelling all claims on the part of the 
tyrant of Gaul to be looked on as any longer a fellow 
Emperor with the son and grandson of Theodosius. 
Constantine was now looked on as an enemy (41 1); the 
enterprise of Sarus was undertaken again with better 
luck ; a force was now sent into Gaul to recover that 
province, or those parts of it in which the Koman 
name still bore rule, from the obedience of Constantine 



III.] Constantme and Maximus. in 

to the obedience of Honorius. A new actor in our 
story appears in command of the host that was sent 
on this errand. Constantius, at a later time to be 
the third Emperor of that name, may be looked on 
as in some sort continuing that great line of Illyrian 
princes which had given the Koman power a renewed 
life. Born at Naissus, bearing one of the great names 
of the Flavian house, if he did not actually share the 
blood of the elder Constantii and Constantini, he must 
at least have inherited their traditions. Schooled 
in the wars of Theodosius *, he was the best captain 
that Bome had left, and he had some merits beyond 
those of the mere man of war. We see in him 
traces of the generosity and greatness of soul of an 
older day, and there is something which calls for 
sympathy in his abiding love for the august lady, 
Eoman princess and Gothic queen, whose marriage 
in the end raised him to the throne. He is brought 
into our story as the future husband of Placidia, the 
future father of the last Valentinian f ; but he may 
fairly claim a place on his own account as at least 
one of the least evil in a bad time. We are told in 
a marked way that Constantius at this stage was 
a man of many virtues and specially open of hand, 
while after his imperial marriage he was fallen into 

* We get several notices of Constantius among the fragments of 
Olympiodoros. In one (467) we read that 'iXXvpios rjv to yivos atro 
Naicrou TroXecos ttjs AaKias, koL TroXXaf (TTpareias otto Tmv Qioboaiov )(p6v(ov 

Tov fxeyakov 8ieX6av. See also 450, 457. 

+ He is brought in by Sozomen (ix. 13) as Kcava-ravTios 6 tov 
OiaXevTiviai/ov rraTTjp, and by OlympiodorOS (450) as Kcova-TavTios OS 
fjydyeTo TiXaKidiav. 



112 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

covetousness, and greediness he loved withal *. It 
was looked on as a deed of justice rather than of 
cruelty when, at some stage of his career, he caused 
Olympics, the slanderer of Stilicho, to lose his ears 
and to be beaten to death with clubs f. We have 
his personal picture, a picture perhaps not altogether 
attractive. We can see him with his wide head, his 
long neck, his large eyes, looking sad and stern as 
he went forth in warlike array, leaning forward on 
the neck of his horse, and turning his eyes hither 
and thither. Men who saw him in such guise said 
that he bore on him the stamp of one who should 
one day be a tyrant, a danger which was escaped 
by his admission among the ranks of lawful princes. 
But those who saw him in his lighter hours thought 
otherwise. At the table and at the banquet of wine, 
he was ever cheerful and bore himself as the equal 
of his companions. He would rise and take his part 
in merry strife with the jesters who were brought in 

* Olympiodoros, 467 ', 'Hk raXka fxkv inaiveros Kai XPW^'''^^ ^^ 
Kpel<T(T<ov, irpiv -q crvva(^driVM HXaKibiq, eVei 5e avrfj (rvve^evKTO, els (}>i\o- 
xprjl^ariav e^atKeike. This, bating the special metaphor, is almost 
translated in the words of the Peterborough Chronicle, 1087; 
" He wses on gitsunge befeallan, and grsedinesse he lufode mid 
ealle.' 

+ This story is told by Olympiodoros (450), but it is not easy to 
fix the date, and it must have been after our time, after his 
marriage with Placidia. Olympics lost his power, as is described 
by Zosimos, v. 46, but rose to power again, and on his second fall, 
was thus dealt with by Constantius ; e^eVfo-e ttjs apx^s. eha ndKiv 
fiTf^rf ravTrjs, etra eKireaav, ponaiKois vaTepou vno Kavcrravriov os ijydyero 
II\aKi8iav Traiofifvos dvaipelrai, Tas aKoas npoTepop eKKOiifU. He adds 
the moral comment J koL rj 8Ur] top avocriovpyov els rekos ovk a<prJKfv 
drinaprjTOP. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 113 

for the common amusement*. Sucli he was in the 
hours of peace at Eavenna; at Aries he showed 
himself in his sterner aspect. He set forth on his 
errand, taking with him as his second in command 
a valiant Goth who bore the renowned name of 
Wulfilasf, a name whose cliief renown has been won 
in other fields than those of warfare. 

Constantius and Wulfilas were sent against Con- 
stantine ; it is not clear whether they expected to 
meet with any other enemy. From what point they 
approached Aries would depend on the road by which 
they left Italy. They might take either side of the 
Little Alps and the Durance ; they might or might 
not pass by Glanum on its plain among the hills, 
with its arch and its still abiding monument. But 
we may best conceive them skirting the roots of Mount 
of Victory, with Gains Marius as passing through 
the city of Sextius with its health-giving waters, 
as pressing on by the Stony Plain, thick with the 
artillery which Zeus himself hurled down to the 

* This curious picture, which has not been neglected either 
by Gibbon (ch. xxxi.) or Hodgkin (i. 823), comes from Olympio- 
doros, 457 J rjv he Kcovaravrios iv fiev rais 7rpo68ois KaTJ]<^f)s Koi 
CTKvdpcairbs, [xeyaXotfydakixos T€ Koi iieyaXavxijv Koi TrXarVAce^aXos, vevoav S 
oXov iiii Tov Tpaxrjkov rov ^epovros avrov mnov, koi ovroi Tfjde KOKeiae 
Xo^ov iKirifiirav to opfia, cos, to tov \6yov, nacri ^aiveadai eidos a^iov 
Tvpavvihos, iv 8e dfiTTVois Koi aviiiroaiois Tepirvos kcu ttoXitikos, as Koi 
ipi^etv Tols filpois TToWaKis irai^ovfn irpb tt^s ^paire^rjs. 

t " Per Honorii duces Constantium et Ulphulam," says Prosper, 
411. So Olymp. 453 ; ev a 8e ravra eyiveTo [while Gerontius entered 
GaulJ KcovaTcivTios /cat Ov\(f)i\as aTroaTeXKovTai Trapa 'Ovapiov Kara 
KavaTavTivov. Sozomen (ix. 1 3) does not mention "Wulfilas now, but 
in his next chapter as OvX^iXas 6 KcovaTavTiov ava-Tpar-qyos. 

I 



114 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

help of his valiant son"^.^, and which the traveller who 
threads the streets of Aries might wish that he was 
not so often called on to trample underfoot. In 
either case the last stage of their journey would 
he the same ; they would draw near the city from 
the north-east;, their approach would immediately 
threaten the Gaulish Gate with the palace of the 
two Constantines rising to their right, while the 
huge mass of the amphitheatre, taken with the city 
and taught, like the lesser amphitheatre of Eome, 
to form part of its defences, rose in its vast bulk 
yet more proudly to their left. We would fain 
know whether it came on them as a surprise to find 
that they had to deal with two enemies within and 
without the city. It was a strange errand on which 
the army of Constantius had come. Their march 
had led them to a besieged town ; but they did not 
come to relieve it ; their object was not to deliver 
but to capture ; only they were for a moment hin- 
dered from capturing because yet another power had 
stepped in before them to besiege. As the troops of 
Gerontius had come from the direct north, their last 
stage must have been the same as the last stage 
of the march of Constantius. The army of Italy 
must have found the army of Spain actually en- 
camped before the very gate by which either of the 
roads one of which they must have taken would lead 
them to the walls. Here there was an enemy to 
be dislodged before they could throw up a bank or 
shoot an arrow against the city itself. Those who 

* Le Crau; see Strabo, iv. 1. 7, and the fragment of ^schylus' 
Prometheus Invinctus there cited; Dindorf. No. 182. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 115 

attacked and those who defended Aries were alike 
traitors to the lawful Emperor whom they served. 
Constantine the tyrant was within ; Gerontius the 
general of Maximus the tyrant was without. If they 
would discharge the errand on which they had been 
sent, themselves to besiege Aries and to arrest its 
Emperor, they had first to deal with those who had 
come out of Spain on the like errand. The work 
was not a hard one. It may be that the soldiers of 
Gerontius were in some way moved by the thought 
that the army of Constantius was the army of a 
lawful and undisputed Emperor. It is certain that 
Gerontius had, by the sternness of his discipline, 
kindled disaffection in his own ranks. The greater 
part of his forces forsook him and followed the 
banners of Constantius. He himself with a small 
party escaped into Spain *, We must presently follow 
him thither to listen to the thrilling tale of his last 
hours ; for the present there is more serious work 
among the streams and the lagunes of Aries, 

By the flight of Gerontius and his few companions 
the army of Italy, the army of Constantius, had 
taken the place of the army of Spain as the host 
to whose lot it fell to besiese Constantine in Aries. 



* 



It is Sozomen (ix. 13) who here gives the fullest and clearest 

account j Tepovnos . . . (^euyei Trapaxp^jfio. jxer oXiyoav (rTpaTicaTasv' ol yap 
TrXelovs Tois a/i0l rov KavaTcivTiov irpoaexo>pr](Tav. Olympiodoros (454) 
is less clear, but he gives us the reason for the desertion of the 
troops of Gerontius ; Tepovnos, Trapayevofievcov OvK(j)iKa koi KcovcrTavTioVf 
(f>evy€i. Koi KaraKijcpBels, on iyKparas rjpxe tov oiKdov (TTparov, vn 
avTwv eKeivav em^ovXeveTai. We should hardly find out from this 
that he got back to Spain, but that he did so is plain from the 
words which next follow in Sozomen. 

I 2 



116 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

Through the defection of so great a part of the 
soldiers of Gerontius, the two besieging armies 
must have been largely made up of the same men. 
Meanwhile it will be remembered that the Frankish 
Edobich, now, at all events, the best officer in the 
service of Constantino, had gone beyond the Rhine 
to seek for allies for his master among Franks and 
Alamans. His mission was not in vain. Aries did 
not yield in a moment. Warfare beneath its walls 
lasted longer than it had lasted beneath the walls of 
Valence or seemingly beneath those of Vienne. The 
siege was already in its fourth month (ill) when the 
news came that Edobich was drawing near with 
a vast and motley host of barbarians to the relief of 
Constantino*. Constantius and Wulfilas were troubled 

* I have here ventured to take a date from Kenatus and a fact 
from other writers. In the extracts made by Gregory (ii. 9) from 
Eenatus, Edobich goes to collect Frankish and Alamannian allies, 
and we hear no more of him. But " vix dum quartus obsidionis 
Constantini mensis agebatur," not Edobich, but Jovinus, who has 
already assumed Empire, comes with a vast barbarian host, and 
then Constantine is given up and sent into Italy. Sozomen, on 
the other hand, records the mission of Edobich and its issue. 
He comes back with the troops he has gathered, fights Constantius, 
and dies as in the text. Then Constantine abdicates. Sozomen 
then mentions the overthrow of Jovinus, but without mentioning 
the time of his usurpation. 

It seems to me that, as far as the whole campaign of Constantius 
is concerned, Sozomen gives a coherent and probable account. 
Henatus may have done the same, if we had his full text ; but 
we have only the account that we can put together out of fragments 
quoted from him by Gregory. "What becomes of Edobich? The 
march of Jovinus is not mentioned elsewhere. Why should Constan- 
tine or the defenders of Aries surrender — seemingly to Constantius 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 117 

at the tidings ; for a moment they even, like Sarus, 
made up their minds to leave Gaul and await the 
enemy in Italy. But the march of Edobich was too 

— because of the coming of Jovinus? Why did not Constantius 
stay to fight Jovinus % But if we accept Sozomen's version, the 
whole is clear. With the failure of Edobich, Constantine's hopes of 
relief are at an end, and he surrenders. The work of Constantius, 
in Gaul at least, is done ; the usurpation of Jovinus, we must 
suppose, comes later. Is it not most likely that there is some 
confusion in Gregory's extracts from Renatus, and that the host 
which came in the fourth month of the siege was really that of 
Edobich and not that of Jovinus % Gregory does not always copy 
things accurately, as we may see by his quotations from Sidonius, 
where we can test him. The withdrawal of Constantius, the 
quiet surrender of Gaul to Jovinus, which Renatus, as we have 
him, implied, have naturally puzzled both Gibbon and Wieter- 
sheim. 

No one but Eenatus seems to put the usurpation of Jovinus 
before the fall of Constantine. Orosius does not follow strict 
chronological order, for he mentions the death of Constans and 
adds " in ej us locum [Gerontius] Maximum quemdam substituit.' ' But 
when he has got rid of Maximus, he says emphatically, " Jovinus 
postea vir Galliarum nobilissimus in tyrannidem mox ut assurrexit, 
cecidit." Prosper Tiro (whatever he is worth) places the fall of 
Constantine in 41 1, and the usurpation of Jovinus (" tyrannidem 
post Constantium invadit") in 413, the same year as his overthrow. 
Marcellinus kills Constantine in 411, and in 412 has "Jovinus et 
Sebastianus in Galliis tyrannidem molientes occisi sunt." The higher 
authority of Prosper places the fall of Constantine in 411, and in 
413 has "Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres in Galliis regno arrepto 
interempti." In all these there is no very distinct or trustworthy 
statement of the date of the usurpation of Jovinus. The casual 
mention in Prosper and Marcellinus, though suggesting a later date 
than that of Renatus, does not amount to a direct statement. 
Idatius alone is explicit, and I think decisive, on the whole 
matter; 



118 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

speedy to allow this timid scheme to be carried out. 
The besiegers of Aries were on the left, the eastern, 
side of the Khone ; Edobich seems to have been 
marching southward along the western bank. When 
the news came that he was actually encamped in 
their near neighbourhood, on the peninsula that is 
covered by the Julian Colony, the furthest point to 
the north-east of the dreary region of the Camargue, 
all thoughts of retreat were cast aside by the generals 
of Honorius. They determined to face the enemy 
boldly. They crossed the river to give battle to 
the new comers. Both this fact, and the scheme 
of action that was planned between the Eoman and 
the Gothic commander, a scheme which showed no 
lack either of skill or of daring, seem to show that 
the host of Edobich could hardly have reached even 
the wall of the Colony, and that the battle must 
have been fought at some little distance from Aries 
itself*. For the followers of Edobich, unlike the 

"xvii [411] Constantinus post triennium invasse tyrannidis ab 
Honorii duce Constantio intra Gallias occiditur. 

xviii [412] Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres intra Galliam, et in 
Africa Heraclianus pari tyrannidis inflantur insania. 

xix [413] Jovinus et Sebastianus oppressi ab Honorii ducibus 
Narbona interfecti sunt." 

I cannot think that the authority of this very clear statement 
is weakened by the inaccuracy of placing the death of Constantine 
(whom he had not mentioned before), as well as his reign and 
overthrow, " intra Gallias." I hold therefore that Jovinus did not 
set himself up till after the death of Constantine, and that the 
army of Jovinus spoken of in Gregory is really the army of Edobich 
whose fate is described by Sozomen. 

* I think I see something like this change of purpose in the not 



III. J Constantine and Maximus. im 

followers of Gerontius, did meet the army of Con- 
stantius in open fight. According to the plan 
arranged between him and Wulfilas, Constantius 
himself*, at the head of the infantry, awaited the 
attack of the enemy. Wulfilas, with the horse, 
seemingly a small body, lurked in ambush at no 
great distance. The host of Edobich, eager for 
battle, marched by the hidden foes without suspect- 
ing their presence, and met the troops of Constantius 
face to face. At a given signal Wulfilas and his 
horsemen dashed out of their lurking-place and 
charged straight on the rear of the enemy. The 
battle was at once decided; the barbarian host was 
broken ; some fled ; some were slain ; the more 
part threw down their arms, craved for mercy, and 
received itf. Edobich fled ; he had, in old Teutonic 
guise, like Englishmen ages after, waged the actual 
battle on foot ; the horse was but a means to take 
the warrior to and from the field. When the day 

very emphatic language of Sozomen (ix. 14). Edobich is said to 

be coming, tovto 8e koI roi/s 'Ovaplov arparrfyovs ov fierpicas i<p6^€i. 
fiovXevcrafievav re avrmv dvaarpecpeiv els t^v 'iraXiav, mKel Treipadrjvai tov 
TToXffiov, Koi eneiBr] tovto (TvuedoKei, 7rKr]a'L0v dyyeXdevros 'ESoj3t;)fou, nepaai 
Pobavov TOV TTOTafiov. Ka\ KavtrTavTios fiev e^cav Toiis ire^ovs, emovTas 
TTepifievei Toiis 7roXep,iovs' OvXcjjiXds de 6 KtovaTavTiov avaTpaTTjyos, ov 
TToppcodev aTTOKpv^els fiera tS)v Imreav ekdvOavev. They must have 
crossed the Rhone in order to bring on a battle now the enemy 
was actually hard by. As Aries lies on the eastern side of the 
river, the enemy must have been on the western. 

* Constantius, we must remember, was, according to Sozomen 
(ix. 16), dvTjp iiaxj-P'OtTaTos Koi aTpaTtjyiKos, 

+ aiiTiKa Te TpoTrrjs yevop,ivr]s, oi fiev (pevyovtrip, ol 8' dvaipovvTai, oi oe 
irKeiovs rot oTrXa dnoOepevoi^ crvyyvaixTjv rJTr]<Tav Koi (p€i8ovs r]^ia)dr](Tav, 



120 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

was lost, like the traitors at Maldon or the vanquished 
remnant on Senlac, he mounted a horse and rode for 
his life*. Not far from the place of battle was the 
country-house of one Ecdicius, a man whom Edobich 
deemed a friend, one to whom he had in former 
days done many good offices. With him he sought 
shelter. But in the mind of Ecdicius there was no 
place for the thought either of hospitality or of 
thankfulness. He smote off the head of the bene- 
factor who craved his help, and carried it to the 
camp of Constantius in hope of a reward. The 
general who could strive for mastery with pro- 
fessional buffoons was ready with a grim joke. He 
took the head and said that for the deed of Wulfilas 
the republic owed its thanks to Ecdicius f. But 
when the murderer showed signs of wishing to stay 
in his company, Constantius bade him begone ; the 
presence of one who had so evil entreated his 
guest was not good for him or for his army|. 

* 'ESo|3ixos ^^ iTTTTou int^as f(f)vyev. This is exactly the last 
scene of the Bayeux Tapestry; only there it was not the chief 
who fled. 

+ KavcrravTios 8e tj]v fiev Ke(f)a\fiv 8e^0T]vai 7rpo<reVa^e, X^P'" ^X^'" 
'EfcStKio) TO 8T}[j,6(riou eiTriov ttjs Ov\<f)i\a irpd^ecos. The jest is a little 
hard to follow, though a jest seems to be meant, but it is hardly 
needful to transpose the two proper names, as was suggested by 
Valois. The word Sjj/xo'o-joz/ is of more importance, as it clearly 
translates res pvhlica, the name constantly applied to the Empire 
long after this time, and which is sometimes a little startling in 
the mouths of those who were not its subjects. Its use seems also 
to show that we have a literal translation of the actual words of 
Constantius. 

J (Tvveivai 8e (nrovba^pvra avrov ava)(a>peiv eKeXevcrev, ovk dyadrfv ij'yij- 
crdfievos kokov ^evo86)(ov ttju (rvvovalav eaea-dai avra rj rfj arpaTia, 



TIL] Constantine and Maxtmus. 121 

And so the man who slew his friend in the day 
of danger was sent away empty by the man who 
refused to reward crime even when he gained by it*. 
The overthrow and death of Edobich sealed the 
fate of Constantine. Seeing no longer any hope 
of Empire, or indeed of life if he still laid claim 
to Empire, he put aside his diadem and purple ; 
he betook himself to a church — already perhaps 
a church of Saint Trophimus — for sanctuary. He 
there found a bishop who perhaps deemed that in 
such a case he might dispense with the precept to lay 
hands suddenly on no man. Constans son of Con- 
stantine had of a monk become Caesar ; Constantine 
himself was now of an Augustus to become a Christian 
presbyter f. In that character he deemed that his 
life at least would be safe. But no great harshness 
was to be feared from Constantius. The defenders 
of the city, on receiving the general's oath for their 
safety and for that of their fallen prince, threw open 
their gates, and the people of Aries at least had 
no need to complain of any breach of faith on the 
part of the conqueror if. No blood was shed by 

* Sozomen seems to quote a proverb; Kara Kevrjs, tovto 8fj roO 
Xoyou, xavav anrjKBe. 

t Again tlie fullest and clearest account is that of S6zomen 
(ix. 15), who alone helps us to some geography; /xera r^f vUr^v 
dvTorepaicodeicrqs avdii npos ttjp ttoKiv t^s 'Ova>ptov arpaTias, paBav 
Kojj/oraj/Tti'os dvaipe'iadai 'Edo^ixov, airos i^ eavrov ttjv aXovpyida Kai ra 
(rvfi^oka TTJs ^acnXetas aTredero, Koi KardKa^av ttjv eKKkrjaiav, x^i'POTOveiTai 
Trpecr^vTfpos. So Olympiodoros, 453; Kcova-Tavrlvos KaTa(f)vya)v els 
evKTTjpiov, TrpeafivTepos Tore ^eipoToveiTai. 

X S6zomen, u. S. ; SpKovs re wporepov Xd^ovres ot ea-a retxSyv dvolyovai 
Tas TTvXas Kai ^etSoCs d^iovvrai ndvres. It is from Olympiodoros that we 



122 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

Constantius. But Constantine and his younger son 
Julian the Nohilissimus were sent to E-avenna to 
ahide the judgement of Honorius. The Emperor 
remembered the slaughter of his kinsmen and did 
not hold himself bound by the oath of his general. 
Messengers of death were sent to meet the prisoners, 
and the priest Constantine and his son were beheaded 
at some point of their journey, either on the Mincio 
or at some point nearer to Ravenna *. 
learn that the promise of safety was specially made to Constantine 

personally ; SpKcov avra vnep (TcoTrjpias dodevTcoVj Koi rots iroKiopKovuiv 
ai TTiikat ttjs TroXeas avaneTovvvvTai. 

* Olympiodoros, 454; TrepTrerai. a-vv ra via Kcuva-Tavrlvos TTpos 
'OvoapwV 6 8e fivrjcriKaKoov avTois virep tS>v dvey^iav avrov ovs irvyxave 
KavcrravTlvos dveXav Tvpo TpiaKovra rrjs 'Pa^evvrjs pi\la>v irapa tovs opKovs 
irpoa-TdTTei. avToiis dvaipe6r)vai. The geography of Renatus (Greg. 
Tur. ii. 9) seems different; " Reserata urbe Constantinus deditur. 
Confestimque ad Italiam directus, missis a principe obviam per- 
cussorihus, super Mintiam flumen capite truncatus est." Surely no 
point on the Mincio can be within thirty miles of Eavenna; yet 
the exactness, in different ways, of both accounts is remark- 
able. Sozomen does not mention the place ; KavaTavrivos a/ia 
'lovKiava rm naiSi irapaTzepCpdels els 'iraXiav, irpXv (pddaai Kara rrjv 686v 
KTivvvrai. 

It is not wonderful that writers who were not telling the story 
in the same detail as Sozomen or even as Olympiodoros should 
have left out the sending into Italy, and have fancied that Con- 
stantine was put to death at Aries. It mattered a good deal for 
the characters of Constantius and Honorius ; but it mattered not 
at all for the general course of things. So Orosius tells the whole 
story in a few words ; " Constantius comes in Gralliam cum exercitu 
profectus Constantinum imperatorem apud Arelatum civitatem 
clausit cepit et occidit." So Idatius in the passage quoted 
already. Prosper Tiro has simply under 411; "Constantinus 
tyrannus occiditur." Marcellinus puts the whole story of Constan- 
tine under 411; "Constantinus apud Gallias invasit imperium, 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 123 

Just at this stage of our story we cannot complain 
of any lack of personal incident. We part for 
a moment from the meagre entries of annalists and 
from fragments pieced together from this source and 
that, to listen to such a story as the fate of Edobich 
and its punishment. But the stirring story of the 
fate of Edobich is tame compared with the thrilling 
tale of the fate of Gerontius. Flying, as we have 
seen, from Aries, he betook himself to Spain, deeming 
that there at least he might reign in the name of 
the tyrant of his own making. But his hold on the 
Spanish province was gone. The troops that had 
been left in Spain scorned the commander who had 
fled*. They plotted his death, and besieged him 
in his own house. He had with him his wife 
Nouuechia, a few slaves, and a faithful Alan. In 
one version he too is a slave ; in a more likely shape 
of the story he is an honourable companion in 
warfare t. The most detailed account of the death 

filiumque suum ex monacho Csesarem fecit. Ipse apud Arelatum 
civitates occiditur ; Constans filius apud Viennam capite pleetitur." 
Any one would think that father and son were put to death in the 
same interest. Prosper himself, who has recorded the revolt of 
Constantine in its place in 407, sums up his later story under 411; 
" Constantinus per Honorii duces Constantius et Ulphilam, apud 
Arelatum oppidum victus et captus est, cujus filium Constantem 
in Hispania regnare orsum Gerontius comes in Maximum quemdam 
tyrannidem transferens interemerat.'' 

* Sozomen, U. S. ', oi 8e iv 'laivavlq. crrpaTi&Tai evKaTa(pp6vT}Tov otto TrjS 
(jivy^s 86^avTa tou TepoPTiov i^ovXevcravTO dveXtlv. 

+ In Olympiodoros he is fls avvayaviaTris 'AXavos to yevos, els 
BovXovs avTov apiGpovfievos. In Sozomen he rises to the rank of eh 
'AXavos emrrjBetos. Surely this is no slave, but a thegn or Bepdirasvy 
a gesiiS or 8ios iraipos. 



124 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

of Gerontius comes from an ecclesiastical historian 
who seems suddenly to take up a character oddly 
mingled between a pagan philosopher and a writer 
of romance. Gerontius and his few comrades, 
attacked by night, defend themselves from the 
upper stage of the house which we must conceive 
as a strong tower capable of offering some effective 
resistance. Not a few such miniature fortresses in 
Ireland and in the border shires of England will enable 
us to call up the scene. Through the embrasures of 
the battlements of his pele-tower, sheltered no doubt 
by the wooden roof coming down on the battlements, 
Gerontius, his Alan friend, and seemingly the slaves 
also, did no small execution among the assailants. 
Themselves almost beyond the reach of missiles, 
they shot at the besiegers till full three hundred 
of them were slain, when their stock of arrows 
failed them. What follows we should hardly beheve 
if it came from a lighter source than an ecclesiastical 
history. It was night, and for a while the attacks 
of the besiegers seem to have ceased. The slaves 
escaped from the house ; Gerontius, and therefore 
we may suppose, his wife and his faithful comrade, 
might have done the same. But Gerontius, restored 
to his wife, hke Odysseus, after a long absence, could 
not bring himself, even when the lives of both 
were at stake, to leave a besieged tower that 
sheltered her. His Alan thegn *, his true Oepdircov — 

* The details of the story all come from Sozomen. Olympio- 

doros says only, Tzvp Kara ttjs oIkius ovtov dvrjyl^av' 6 8e irpos Toi/s 

inavatnavTas Kaprepas ipa^^ero. He then mentions the presence of 

the Alan. But in Sozomen we read; ^pa^dnevoi vvKxap airov ] 



iir.] Constantine and Maximus. 125 

we are hardly wrong if we use either the Teutonic 
word or its Greek equivalent — tarried with his lord 
and friend, a doomed groomsman at the renewed 
wedding. The day dawned, but it brought with it 
to Nounechia only a morning-gift of death. With 
the light the besiegers was again active ; their 
weapons had failed; they now brought fire to the 
attack, and the three felt that there was no longer 
hope. But they would not fall alive into the hands 
of their enemies. First of all Gerontius smote off 
the head of the faithful Alan, who offered himself to 
the stroke, a gesi^ who would not outlive his eld,er. 
Then the weeping Nounechia craved a last gift 
of the husband who was so strangely to die for love 
of her ; let her be slain by his hand rather than pass 
into the power of others. She thrust herself eagerly 
against the weapon; Gerontius yielded to her prayer, 
and the faithful wife died by a stroke of the same 
sword wielded by the same hand that had ended 
the days of the Alan. Gerontius now stood alone 
beside the dead ; the stroke of the sword failed him ; 
he then grasped the trusty dagger that hung by his 
thigh, and drove it to his heart *. It might seem that 

rr]V oiKiav Karebpafiov, 6 Se fieff ivos 'Akavov iTTinjdelov Koi oXiyav oiKerav, 
avadep To^evav, vnep tovs rpiaKociovs dpaipei (Trpariaras' iirCKei^dvTmv 
he tS)V jSeXSi/, (jievyovaiv oi olKerai, KaOivres avroiis tov olKTjfiaros Xddpq. 
TepovTios fie tov Ictov BiacadTJi/ai dwdfievos, ovx eiKero, KaraaxeBus epcori 
Nouw;^tas rrjs avTov yap,€Trjs. If lie could escape, surely she could 
also. 

* Olympiodoros records the three deaths in a few words ; reXos 
Toi; re 'AXavov koi ttjv yvvaiKa^ tovto 7rpo6vp.ovfifVovs, dvaipet, eTrtKaTacr^a^ft 
8e Koi eavTov. Sozomen enlarges ; Trept Se Tfjv eco TTvp en^dKovrav rfj 
oiKia rav aTparKorav, ovk e^cop konrop craTtjpias eX;riSa, Ikovtos tov 



126 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iir. 

all these details of deeds of which no witness was 
left could hardly have been inferred even from a more 
careful examination of the dead bodies than was 
likely to be made when wrathful enemies at last 
made their way into a house which was perhaps 
already burning, But we must tell the tale as we 
find it, and specially we must not leave out the 
comment. Nounechia, so our ecclesiastical guide tells 
us, a Christian woman, died with a courage worthy 
of her faith, and left a memory which ought never 
to be forgotten'"'. It is for some moral ductor 
diibitantium to rule whether we have here truly 
a case of " homicide by necessity." The ordinary 
historian may keep himself to the humbler work of 
wondering at the minute knowledge of the guide 
whom he has to follow. 

So, we are to believe, died Gerontius the Briton, who 
had helped to set up one tyrant in Gaul, and who had 
set up another in Spain of his own hand. His former 

(TVvovTOS avTO) A\avov dnoTenvei rfjv Ke<pa\^v' fiera he Tovra ttjs Ibiai 
■ya/ier^s oXo(f)vpoiJ.€Vt]s koL fj-era SaKpvcov Trpocro}6ovaT]s avrrjv ra ^l(f)ei, Koi 
Trp\v vcf) irepois yeveadai^ irapa tov dpbpos dirodavelv alrovcrTjs^ Koi tovto 
TO hSypov varaTov Trap avTov Xa/Setv dvTi^oXovcrrjs .... Tepovrios Se 
rpiTov eavTov ra ^L(j)ei Traiaas, as ov Kaipiav XajSwi/ ^o-^ero, (Tiraaayievos to 
Trepl TOV fiTjpov ^i^ibtov, koto, ttjs Kapbias fjXaa-e. 

H p.€v yvv-q, dvbpeia ttjs Bprfanelas fira^las ^aveitra (rjv yap p^pioriai/i)) 
&)Se Te6vr]Ke, KpeiTTOva \rj6rjs ttjv -rrepX avTTjs fivr]p,rjv tov xpovov Trapadov<ra, 
Tillemont, 551, 561, is a good deal shocked at Sozomen's good opinion 
of NounecMa. But was Gerontius a pagan ? the Alan might be 
more likely than not. Only what were an Alan's gods ? 

Orosius, who does not directly tell the story, but merely brings 
in the fate of Gerontius in his " catalogus tyrannorum," says merely, 
" Gerontius a suis militibus occisus est." This was near enough to 
the fact for his purpose. Cf. Fauriel, i. 76. 



III.] Constantine and Maximus. 127 

master Constantine and his master's son Lad fallen 
with more outward show of civil justice, and their 
corpses were in the power of the prince in whose 
interest they were overthrown. According to one 
strange statement, the heads of Constantine and 
Julian, as well as the heads of other tyrants earlier 
and later, were sent from Italy to be set up to the 
public gaze at Carthage*. It is just possible that 
such a step may have been taken to remind the 
furthest parts of the dominions of Honorius of the 
power and the stern justice of their master. If so, 
the lesson was in vain. Africa, among the other 
dangerous growths of its soil, could send forth 
a tyrant as well as Britain and Spain. But for the 
moment the whole West, so far as it was not 
actually in barbarian hands, again obeyed the son 
of Theodosius. Honorius was undisputed Emperor ; 
it was by his praefects and officers that the provinces 
were ruled f. Gaul was at rest ; the corner of Spain 

* This comes from a fragment of Olympic doros (456), where he 
records the fate of Jovinus and Sebastian ; dvaridevTai aficjxa ai 
Kecf)a\a). Kapdayevrjs e^codev, evda Koi fj KavaTavrlvov Koi fj 'lovXiavov 
dneTfirjOtja-av TrpoTfpov. he adds those of Maximus and Eugenius in 
the time of Theodosius. Mr, Hodgkin (i. 827, n.) once suggested 
that " Carthage " is a mistake for " Milan." If so, it is a strange 
one. He now believes that " Carthage " is right. Wietersheim 
(ii. 159) has no doubt. He calls it an "Ehrebezeugung," which 
reminds one of the quarrel over the quarters of David of Wales. One 
notices that the Latin form ILapBayivi} is now the received name among 
Greek writers for restored Carthage as for New Carthage, which 
Mr. Bury thinks may be here meant ; Kapxq^oiv is quite an archaism. 

+ Sozomen says emphatically ; t6 i^ eKelvov ttoKiv t6 t^Bs vnrjKoov 
fls TTjv 'Ovcopiov fjyfp.oviau errav^XOe, koi toIs vtt ovtov apxpvatv eiretofTo. 
This seems inconsistent with Jovinus having revolted already. 



128 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iii. 

which still clave to Eoman rule in some shape, 
submitted to its lawful wielder. Whether the 
presence of Constantius or of any armed force was 
needed, we are not directly told. But one or two 
things look like acts of Constantius. Maximus ceased 
to reign. He was forsaken by the soldiers whom 
Gerontius had brought from Gaul. By some 
authority — and whose could it have been save that 
of the victor of Aries % — those troops were moved 
first into Africa and then into Italy. They were 
most likely on too good terms with the barbarians 
of Spain, barbarians who were in formal alliance with 
the deposed tyrant, to be allowed to stay in the 
peninsula. As for Maximus himself, his personal 
character and conduct had been so little blameworthy 
that he was allowed to live. If Constantius had any 
hand in the matter, he had most likely learned that 
it was better not to trust Honorius with those whose 
lives he wished to save. But either Maximus still 
had fears, or he could not bear to live as a subject 
where he had reigned even in name ; or it may 
be that absence from his former dominions was made 
the condition on which his life was spared. In any 
case he fled to his barbarian friends, he was living 
among them when Orosius wrote the last pages of 
his great homily, and there seems no reason to accept 
the statement of a much later writer, that, eleven 
years after the fall of Gerontius and Constantino (422), 
Maximus was sacrificed at Kome to celebrate the 
sixth lustrum of the reign of Honorius *. 

* Olympiodoros (454), after recording the death of Gerontius, 
Md^i/xos 8e 6 nals ravTa fiaOav, irpos Toiis vrroajrovbovs ^evyei 



III.] Constanttne and Maxtmus. 129 

Hoiiorius then, four years after the revolt of Con- 
stantine, is for a moment free from Eoman rivals. 
Barbarian may lay waste the lands of the Empire; but 
no tyrant lays claim to its diadem. This peaceful 
side of the Eoman world is indeed not to last long, and 
there is meanwhile another side which is anything but 
peaceful. It is to this last side that we must now 
turn our eyes. Gerontius, in seizing a corner of 
Spain for his own creature, had betrayed the rest 
of the great peninsula to the Vandals, Suevians, and 
Alans who had made their way thither out of Gaul. 
It is now time to see something of their doings in the 
land which they had entered, doings of no small 
account in the history of Western Europe. 

lBap0apovs, where the word iTroa-novdovs (see above, p. 125, note) should 
be specially noticed. But both Orosius and Prosper give us some 
significant hints. Orosius says, " Maximus exutus purpura desti- 
tutusque a militibus Gallicanis, qui in Africam trajecti deinde in 
Italiam revocati sunt, nunc inter barbaros in Hispania egens 
exsulat." Pi-osper under 412 has; "Maximus in Hispania, regno 
ablato, vita ei concessa, eo quod modestia humilitasque hominis 
affectati imperii invidiam non mereretur." Idatius tells us nothing 
about the fate of Maximus ; and there is clearly confusion of some 
kind in the story in Marcellinus (422), "tercennalis Honorii 
Maximus tyrannus et Jovinus ferro victi adducti de Hispaniis 
atque interfecti sunt." Yet Maximus may have come to light 
again during the warfare of Castinus and Boniface in that year, 
though that was not a warfare likely to bring prisoners to Italy. 

It certainly seems to me that the notices in Orosius and Prosper 
suggest some such explanation as I have hinted at in the text. 



K 



IV. 

[THE BAEBARIAN INVADERS.] 

In our view of the years with which we are 
now (leaUng, we have to look at a great drama, 
two acts of which are going on at the same time, 
ever influencing one another, but still distinct from 
one another in idea. We watch the rise and fall of 
the successive candidates for the Empire of Rome, 
the tyrants who spring to power for a moment only 
to yield to the strangely abiding luck of a prince 
who must in every personal gift have been the 
inferior of any of them. We watch too with a deeper 
interest the events which had a more direct effect on 
the later history of the world, the movements of the 
barbarian nations, and their settlements within the 
lands of the Empire. Specially we watch the move- 
ments and settlements of those nations which were of 
our own kindred ; above all we trace, whenever we 
are allowed, as we are now and then in passing, the 
earliest fortunes of our own people. The two scenes 
of action, the doings of the tyrants and the doings of 
the barbarians, cannot be kept asunder. Here the 
barbarian sets up tyrants and puts them down as suits 
his purposes. Here the tyrant calls in the barbarians as 
suits his purposes ; but finds it less easy to send away 



The Barbarian Invaders. i3i 

the barbarian whom he has called in than the barbarian 
finds it to put down the tyrant whom he has set up. 
There is no side of the affairs of the Empire, no 
quarter in which those affairs are acted, which does 
not influence some other side and some other quarter. 
In our present inquiry the matter and the quarter 
which seem least directly to concern us are the most 
striking of events, the most attractive of lands — Italy 
and her fate during the campaigns of Alaric. While 
our own story is going on in the narrower fields of 
Trier or Aries or Tarragona, we must never forget, as 
we are sometimes tempted to forget, that greater deeds, 
as we commonly measure the greatness of deeds, were 
doing on the wider field of Rome. Yet we must 
remember also that it was the march of Alaric into 
Italy which was the beginning of our whole story ; 
it was that march which led to the barbarian invasion 
of Gaul, to the crossing of Constantino from Britain, 
and to all that followed on that invasion and that 
crossing. And now we must remember again that, 
before Constantino surrendered to Constantius, before 
Constantius set forth for Aries, Alaric no longer led 
the West-Gojths. The accession of Atawulf had changed 
tli&~~whote relations of Romans and barbarians in 
Italy; it was about to change them in Gaul and 
Spain. In 411 Honorius could act as he could not 
have acted in 410 ; when Rome was sacked, Ailes 
was safe, at least against Honorius. And under 
Atawulf his people put out a wholly new aspect in our 
own story. Hitherto it has been only incidentally 
that we have had to speak of the Goths and their 
movements. They will soon become the chief 

K 2 



132 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv 

actors in our tale. But for them we have to wait 
another year, and we have also a gap, hardly a gap 
of a full year (411-412), during which the throne of 
Honorius w^as not disturbed by the revolt of a single 
tyrant. We have therefore a moment to look at one 
act of our drama by itself. We can now see, as far 
as our lights will let us, how things fared with the 
native inhabitants, with the barbarian invaders, of 
Gaul, Spain, and Britain, at the moment when 
Constantine had fallen, when Jovinus had not yet 
arisen, and when Atawulf had not made his way into 
Gaul. But it is an inquiry which will lead us far 
beyond the moment of our first glimpse, and that 
above all, in matters which may now and then con- 
cern our own people, and which speci^dly concern the 
land to whose winning our own people were drawing 
nearer day by day. 

We said just now that Maximus, when his life was 
spared, most likely by the mercy of Constantius, fled 
to the barbarians. To fly to the barbarians was just 
now an easy matter, either for deposed Emperors or 
for other men. In Spain it was easiest of all. We 
have seen that, five years before this time (406-407), 
the great combined host of Vandals, Sueviaus, and 
Alans had entered Gaul, and that, two years before 
this time (409), they had made their way into Spain. 
The civil wars of the contending Koman princes are 
handed down to us in detail, while our notices of 
the movements of the barbarians are so grievously 
vague, that it needs an eflbrt to take in how small 
a part of both Gaul and Spain was touched by the dis- 



IV.] The Barbarian hivaders. i35 

puted claims of Honorius, CoDstantine, and Maxiiiius, 
in other words how small a part of either land was 
left to the obedience of Kome in any shape. We are 
tempted to fancy that victory or defeat carried with 
it the dominion of the whole land, while in truth the 
whole story is confined to a corner of Gaul and 
a corner of Spain, while the greater part of both 
lands were dealt with as the invaders thought good. 
There is something not a little strange in the sight 
of rival princes thus struggling with one another for 
these shreds of Empire, while the common enemy 
tears away land after land from the dominion of any 
of them. Yet such are the facts with which we 
have to deal, facts which are far from standing alone, 
but which have no lack of parallels both in earlier 
and in later times. The enemy who was laying 
waste whole provinces was never looked on as 
a common enemy; each disputant found it better 
suited his purpose to use him as an ally against the 
more immediate enemy among his own people. Con- 
stantine, as we have seen, clearly had some under- 
standing with the ravagers of Gaul *; Gerontius, yet 
more clearly, had an understanding with the same 
enemies. They fought in his armies ; among them, 
as among pledged allies, we have just seen that 
Maximus found shelter. It was indeed the under- 
standino- between Gerontius and the barbarians 
which gave Gaul a temporary relief and the Koman 
power in Gaul a chance of temporary revival. But 
it gave them only at the cost of the endurance by 
Spain of the horrors from which Gaul had been set 

* See above, p. 97 and note. 



134 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

free, and of the sudden and final overthrow of the 
Koman power in the greater part of the peninsula. 
In concert with Gerontius, Vandals, Alans, Suevians 
left the wasted lands of Gaul to seek fresh prey and 
this time fresh homes in the untouched lands of 
Spain. In Gaul they had simply ravaged ; in Spain 
they sat down and dwelled. 

Of this great revolution we have hardly anything 
that can be called a narrative. Of the course which 
the invasion took we know less than we know of the 
invasion of Gaul just before. Of that we do know 
the main geographical outlines and the special fate 
of this and that city. Here, till the partition and 
settlement a little later, we get no geography at all ; 
but our chronology is as minute as it was when the 
same invaders first entered Gaul. Some passed the 
mountain border on the 28th day of September, 
others on the istli day of October, in the year of the 
eighth consulship of Honorius and the third of 
Theodosius (409) *. The passes of the Pyrenees had, it 
will be remembered, been left open to them by the 

* It was the Gaulish Prosper who gave us the exact date for the 
crossing of the Rhine, it is no less fittingly the Spaniard Idatius 
who gives us the exact date for the crossing of the Pyrenees ; 
*' Alani et Wandali et Suevi Hispanias ingressi sera ccccxlvii, alii 
quarto kalendas, alii tertio idus Octobris memoi'ant die, tertia 
feria, Honorio viii et Theodosio Arcadii filio iii consulibus." Prosper 
tells us only, " Vandali Hispanias occupaverunt." Isidore, in his 
Chronicle (Eoncalli, ii. 434), makes a synchronism which it is well 
to remember ; " Gotthi Romam capiunt, Wandali quoque et Alani 
et Suevi Hispanias occupant." Cassiodcrus has only " His coss. 
Wandali Hispanias occupaverunt." Count Mai'cellinus did not 
think matters so far west worth recording. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 135 



removal of their native Spanish defenders*. The 
Honorian troops who had taken their places, instead 
of offering them any opposition, joined themselves to 
the new comers f. But we are told nothing as to 
the particular points where they entered, as to the 
course which any of them took, or as to the fate of 
particular cities. We know the name of one only 
among their leaders, Ermeric chief of the Suevians \. 
But of their doings we have more than one vivid 
general picture, and that from contemporaries and 
natives of the suffering land. While we thank them 
for telling us thus much, we feel a kind of grudge 
against them for not giving us all the details which 
they must have had in their memories. In the few 
months that were left of the year of their entry 
a plague arose from which the invaders who were 

* See above, p. 67, note. It is now that Isidore in the Historia 
Wandalorurn biings in the kinsfolk of Honorius a little before 
their time. 

t So Orosius ; " Igitur Honoriaci imbuti prseda et allecti abun- 
dantia, quo magis scelus impunitum foret atque ipsis sceleris plus 
liceret, prodita Pyrensei custodia claustrisque patefactis cunctas 
gentes quae per Gallias vagabantur Hispaniarum provinciis immit- 
tunt, iisdemque ipsi adjunguntur; ubi actis aliquamdiu magnis 
cruentisque discursibus post graves rerum atque hominum vasta- 
tiones, quantum ipsos quoquo modo pcenitet, habita sorte et distri- 
buta usque ad nunc possessione consistunt." 

I Isidore begins his " Historia Suevorum " with the words, 
" Suevi principe Ermerico cum Alanis et Wandalis simul Spanias 
ingressi sunt." He goes on to describe his reign of thirty-two years. 
Wietersheim (ii. 138) remarks that Procopius is mistaken when he 
says (Bell. Vand. i. 3); Bai'SiXot . . . fjyov^evov airols TobeyiOTKXov, 

ev 'icrnavia i8pv(TavTo, as Godegisel was killed on the other side of 
the Khine. See above. 



136 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

slaughtering far and wide doubtless suffered at least 
as severely as the natives *. Some resistance they 
seem to have met with ; at least we are told that 
the substance of the cities was swallowed up by 
soldiers and tyrannical tax-gatherers f. The soldiers 
must be soldiers of Borne, paid to offer some front- to 
the invaders, and the tax-gatherers are assuredly the 
officers of Eome, busy after the soldiers' pay and all 
that came out of the purses of the provincials. 
Hunger followed in the wake of the sword and the 
pestilence ; men ate their fellow-men ; even mothers 
ate their children. The beasts of the field, grown 
bold by feasting on the dead, presently made victims 
of the living. The four sore judgements of the Lord 
announced by his prophets, all fell on the devoted 
land \. Yet were there some small softenings of the 
general horror. The whole land was not laid waste 
at once ; those who were persecuted in one city 
could sometimes flee to another ; the invaders 
gradually grew milder ; they who might have slain 

* So Idatius ; " Barbari qui in Hispanias ingressi fuerant, csede 
deprsedantur hostili. Pestilentia suas partes non segnius operatur." 

+ lb. " Debacchantibus per Hispanias barbaris, et sseviente 
nihilominus pestilentiee malo, opes et conditam in urbibus sub- 
stautiam tyrannicus exactor diruit et miles exhaurit." 

I lb. " Fames dira grassatur, adeo ut humanee carnes ab humane 
genere vi famis fuerint devoi atae : matres quoque necatis vel 
coctis per se natorum suoi'um sint pastse corporibus. Bestige 
occisorum gladio, fame, pestilentia, cadaveribus assuetse, quosque 
hominum fortiores interimunt, eorumque carnibus pastse passim in 
humani generis efferantur interitum. Et ita quatuor plagis ferri, 
famis, pestilentioe, bestiarum, ubique in toto orbe ssevientibus, 
prsedictse a Domino per propbetas sues annuntiationes implentur." 



I 



IV] The Barbarian Invaders. 137 

all and carried off the goods of all, would sometimes 
stoop to take a hireling's wages, to defend, to serve, 
even to bow their shoulders to the carrying of 
burthens *. Before two years were ended, God moved 
the hearts of the invaders to occupy the land instead 
of wasting it. The wandering hosts settled down 
and became nations dwelling under their kings on 
the conquered soilf. 

The two sides of the character of the invaders of 
Spain, as described by natives of Spain recording 
what they had themselves seen, form a striking 
contrast, but not an unnatural one. The kind of 
life which men led during the Wandering of the 
Nations was likely to bring out very opposite sides 
of human nature. Quite distinct from the refined 
delight in actual cruelty which belongs rather to 
a more advanced and scientific stage of man's training, 
there seems to be lurking in at least many of uy, not 
only a general love of excitement, but a certain love 
of mere havoc which often comes out even in highly 

* The less dark part of the story, though not left out by Idatius, 
comes out most strongly in Orosius ; " Quae cum ita sint, illud 
tantum dementia Dei eadem pietate qua dudum prsedixerat 
procuravit ut secundum evangelium suum quo incessabiliter com- 
monebat ; cum vos persecuti fuerint in una civitate, fugite in aliam, 
quisque egrediens quo abire vellet ipsis barbaris mercenariis minis- 
tris ac defensoribus uteretur. Hoc tunc ipsi offerebant. Et qui 
auferre omnia interfectis omnibus poterant paiticulam stipendii 
ob mercedem servitii sui et transvecti oneris flagitabant." 

t Idatius, xvii.Hon.; " subversis memorata plagarum grassatione 
Hispanise proviuciis, bai-bari ad pacem ineundam, Domino miseraiite, 
conversijSorte ad inhabitandum sibiprovinciarumdividunt regiones." 
Orosius speaks of "biennium illud quo hostil's gladius ssevit." 



138 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

civilized societies whenever the restraints of law and 
uSfjge are broken tlirough. The rough dealings of 
a barbarian invader with men and things in the 
invaded land have nothing in common with the 
prolonged and carefully studied cruelties of a Yis- 
conti. Salvianus, in summing up the vices and 
virtues of the barbarians, sets down mere cruelty 
as the characteristic vice of one nation only, though 
that, we are sorry to say, is the nation in whose 
reputation we are most nearly concerned*. In 
speaking of cruelty as the marked fault of the 
Saxons, Salvianus is but forestalling the more detailed 
witness of Sidonius. And we may mark the notable 
distinction which the stern prophet draws between 
the Teutonic invaders of the Empire and those 
invaders of wilder nations who were stirring in the 
world at the same time. It is not likely that 
Salvianus troubled himself much with ethnoloo;ical 
theories. He might very likely not notice that the 
Goth and the Frank, he would assuredly not notice 
that the Goth and the Eoman, came immeasureably 
nearer to one another in speech and in all that goes 
to make nationality, than any of them did to the 
Hun. The European, who had in him the power 

* This comes from Salvian's (vii. 15) balance of the virtues and 
vices of the several barbarian nations; "Gothorum quis perfida est, 
sed pudica ; Alanorum impudica sed minus perfida ; Franci men- 
daces sed hospitales ; Saxones crudelitate efferi, sed castitate 
mirandi ; omnes denique gentes habent, sicut peculiaria mala, ita 
etiam queedam bona." The Eomans of Africa had no good thing 
found in them. On Saxon cruelty, see the well-known descrip- 
tion of Sidonius [speaking of their sacrificial slaughter of their 
captives]. 



I 



jv.] The Barbarian Invaders. 139 

of rising to the highest level, akeady marked his 
superiority over those intruders from Asia whom we 
may call barbarians from the Teutonic as well as from 
the Koman point of view. They showed it specially 
in those matters in which the early society of Teutonic 
Europe has always kept its superiority over the early 
society of Africa and Asia. All the nations had their 
several faults. If the Saxon had his cruelty, the 
Frank and, we are surprised to hear, the Goth, had 
his faithlessness. But the strict chastity of all the 
Teutonic nations is loudly praised. It is praised 
chiefly in opposition to the corrupt manners of the 
Komans in general, and specially to those of Aquitaine 
and Africa*. But it stands in hardly less marked 
contrast to the manners of those invaders who had 
no share even in the remoter fellowship of Goth and 
Koman. The Vandals who burst into Spain were 
conspicuous for their chastity ; not so the Alans, not 
so the Huns. The Alans too he brands with a special 
mark as greedy plunderers, while he lays no such 
blame on the Vandals, whom he acquits also of that 
extortion and oppression of the poor which he sets 
down as one of the worst sins of Koman rulef. Of 

* The people of Africa, and specially those of Carthage, are 
rebuked, or rather reviled, through nearly the whole of Salviau's 
treatise. The Aquitanians come in for several hard thrusts, speci- 
ally at vii. 3. 

+ Salvian (v. 8) first sets forth the oppression of the poor which 
accompanied the Eoman system of taxation, and then asks ; " Ubi 
aut in quibus sunt nisi in Eomanis tantum hsec mala 1 quorum 
injustitia tanta nisi nostra ? Franci enim hoc scelus nesciunt : 
Chuni ab his sceleribus immunes sunt : nihil horum est apud 
Wandalos, nihil hoium apud Gothos. Tam longe enira est ut hsec 



140 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

the third people who now entered Spain, tlie Siievians; 
Salvianus gives us no picture. Something must 
always be taken away from his rhetoric on both 
sides. We need not believe that the Komans were 
quite so bad, neither dare we flatter ourselves that 
the Teutonic settlers were quite so good, as they 
appear in the pages of one who had a strong tempta- 
tion to exaggerate on both sides. But there must 
be a groundwork of truth in both pictures. We 
may believe that even barbarian conquest was not 
wholly without its less dark side. We must remember 
the strange contradictions of man's nature. Ravage, 
plunder, even shiughter, done among the whirl of 
feelings which must accompany the armed entry into 
a strange land, are really not inconsistent with much 
true kindliness of heart lurking below. With men 
who are not in the habit of either subduing or 
disguising any of their emotions, the fiercer and 
the gentler feelings come to the front in a strange 
kind of alternation. We are therefore not surprissd 
to read, though we take off a little from rhetoric 
which is not without a purpose, how before long 
the invaders beat their swords into plough-shares, 
how they dealt with the Roman remnant as allies 
and friends, how not a few Romans of the still 
untouched lands chose rather to go and enjoy free- 
dom, though along with poverty, among the bar- 
inter Gothos baibari tolereut ut ne Piomaui quldem qui inter eos 
vivunt i.-ita patiantar." It must not be forgotten that S3^stematic 
taxation is a characteristic of civilized society, and that therefore 
neither its uses nor its abuses were likely to be found among the 
barbarians. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. hi 

barians, rather than to suffer the cares and exactions 
which fell on a dweller within what was left of the 
Eoman dominion"'. That dominion had now shrunk 
up into the north-eastern corner of the peninsula. 
The rest wais parted out among the new comers. 
The Suevians and one branch of the Vandals estab- 
lished themselves in the north-western corner, the 
land of Gallicia. Another branch of the Vandals, 
the Silingi, established themselves in the extreme 
south, in Bcetica, a land whose later name of 
Andalusia has been thought by some to be a witness 
of their sojourn. The central lands of Lusitania and 
the province of New Carthage fell to the lot of 

* After the passage last quoted Salvian goes on ; " Itaque 
unum illic Eomanorum omnium votum est ne umquam eos necesse 
sit in jus transire Romanum. Una et consentionis illic Romanse 
plebis oratio ut liceat eis vitam quam agunt agere cum barbaiis. 
Et miramur si non vincuntur a nostris partibus Gothi, cum malint 
apud hos esse quam apud nos Romani. Itaque non solum trans- 
fugere ab eis ad nos fratres nostri omnino nolunt, sed ut ad eos 
eonfugiant nos relinquunt." He had said before in the fifth chapter 
of the same book ; " Quamvis ab his ad quos confugiunt discrepent 
ritu, discrepent lingua, ipsa etiam, ut ita dicam, corporum atque 
induviarum barbaricarum fcetore dissentiant, malunt tamen in 
barbaris pati cultum dissimilem quam in Romanis injustitiam 
ssevientem. Itaque passim vel ad Gothos vel ad Bacaudas vel ad 
alios ubique dominantes barbaros migrant, et coraraigrasse non 
pcenitet: malunt enim sub specie captivitatis vivere liberi quam 
sub specie libertatis esse captivi." One hardly expected to find 
the " Bacaudse," who surely were Gaulish provincials, reckoned 
among barbarians. Orosius speaks in the like sort ; " Continuo 
barbari exsecrati gladios suos ad aratra conversi sunt, residuos- 
que Romanos ut socios modo et amicos fovent, ut inveuiantur inter 
eos quidam Romani qui maliut inter barbaros pauperem libertatem 
quam inter Romanos tributariam sollicitudinem sustinere." 



142 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

Alans, who thus for a moment held a dominion 
stretching from the Mediterranean to the Ocean *. 
Of these kingdoms that of the Suevians was the 
most abiding. A Suevian power, with very fluctu- 
ating boundaries, lasted in Spain for more than two 
hundred years. The West-Gothic sword, wielded 
in the name of Eome, before long made short work 
of the rest. The Alans and the nortliern Vandals 
vanish from history. The southern Vandals cross 
the strait to become more famous in Africa. The 
Teutonic power which was to be really abiding in 
the land, which was to hand on to the later life 
of Spain whatever of Teutonic elements are to be 
found in it, was neither the Suevian nor the Vandal, 
but the West-Goth. 

But we have also again to look at the other lands 
of the West, in one of which the West-Goth is 
presently to play a memorable, though a less abiding, 
part than he played in Spain. The war between 
Gerontius and Constantine led, in some way which 
it is not easy to understand in detail, to the final 
separation of Britain from the Boman dominion and 
to a separation, if at first only partial and for a season, 
of that part of Gaul which before long began to share 
the British name. The two events go together ; the 
fates of the elder Britain in the island and of the 

* The geography is given by Idatius ; " Gallaeciam Wandali 
occupant et Suevi, sitam in extremitate oceani maris occidua. 
Alani Lusitaniam et Carthaginiensem provincias, et Wandali 
cognomine Silingi Boeticum sortiuutur. Hispani per civitates et 
castella residui a plagis barbarorum per provincias dominantium s^e 
subjiciunt servituti." 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 143 

younger Britain on the mainland cannot be kept 
asunder. And the importance of the fates of both 
is of the highest. On the fate of the island at this 
moment nothing short of the future calling of our 
own people turns. Were Angles and Saxons simply 
to be as Goths and Franks or to be something wholly 
different \ We were about to take possession of 
a new home ; it was of the utmost moment to our 
future life in what state we found that home. Of 
all historic losses, the cruellest is that which has 
forbidden us to instruct ourselves by any continuous 
history of Britain in the fifth century. It is not 
that such a treasure once was and has perished. We 
may be sure that nothing of the kind ever was, that 
nothing of the kind ever could be. But the fact 
that no history of Britain in those times ever was 
or ever could be is itself the most instructive of all 
facts. Our ignorance does in truth teach us better 
than any amount of knov»rledge could. We mourn 
that, so far from having a Sidonius or a Gregory for 
Britain, we have not even a Prosper or an Idatius. 
But the fact that we have neither sets before us 
the difference between the fate of Britain and the 
fate of other lands better than it could be set before 
us by the minutest knowledge of events. As for the 
lesser Britain which now began to arise in Gaul, it 
has not had the same influence on the world's history 
as the Greater ; yet it plays a memorable part in the 
history of Gaul from this age onwards ; and its very 
being is one of the most signal phsenomena of history. 
A survival of a people, say of Wends, of Lithuanians, 
of older Basques, is always attractive. But the Celtic 



144 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

corner of Gaul is more than the survival of a people. 
It is the unique phsenomenon of a speech and a nation- 
ality which must have been at least decaying being 
suddenly quickened and strengthened, while its 
fellows were dying out around it, being called up 
to an abiding life and to some measure of importance 
in the world, by the settlement of colonists of 
a kindred stock, and those not hopeful settlers sent 
forth from a flourishing metropolis, but for the most 
part men flying from an invaded land to seek other 
homes for themselves. Here then v/e have one of 
the great facts of the world's history, coupled with 
a lesser fact of singular interest in its own way. 
Only we have to grope after such meagre knowledge 
as we can reach to about Britain either through 
a cloud of thick darkness such as shrouds no other 
part even of the tale, in other parts often dark 
enough, which we have undertaken to spell out. 
The island of Britain parted from the dominion of 
Eome, and a new Britain arose in a corner of Gaul. 
These are our main facts ; at the details we may 
guess for ever. 

Truly our knowledge of these events has to be 
put together from the most meagre and most pro- 
voking of authorities. For the events in Britain 
which immediately foUowe'd the departure of Con- 
stantine from the island comes from one source only, 
and the narrative is anything but clear, anything 
but easy to patch on to the other recorded events 
of the time ; but there is no reason to doubt the 
final result, however hard it may be to trace out 
the exact causes and connexion of events. In the 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 145 

version of Zosimos, Gerontius, at the time of his 
quarrel with Constantine, stirs up the barbarians 
who were then in Gaul against the master against 
whom he had revolted. This movement in Gaul 
seems in his narrative to take the place of the 
barbarian settlement in Spain. And in a certain 
sense that settlement might be spoken of as a move- 
ment against the power of Constantine. But the 
narrative of Z6simos rather suggests a direct attack 
on Constantine's dominion in Gaul made by the 
barbarians wqo were already in that land, and this 
it is certainly hard to find a place for among the 
events of the time as more clearly handed down 
to us elsewhere. That Gerontius was in league with 
the Vandals, Alans, and Suevians seems certain ; 
that he took with him allies or mercenaries of those 
nations in his march against Vienne and Aries there 
is no reason to doubt. But there is no sign of any 
general movement on the part of the invaders of 
Gaul against that south-eastern corner which still 
clave to Eome, even though to Kome represented 
by Constantine. Still some of their numbers did 
doubtless march against Constantine, if only under 
another Koman banner. And, when we are told that, 
in order to defend himself from barbarian enemies, 
Constantine sent for other barbarians from beyond 
the Khine, we seem clearly to see the host that 
Edobich brought to the relief of Aries. But it is 
hard to see how the presence of that host in Provence, 
or indeed in any part of Gaul, could have caused 
the inhabitants of Britain to throw off the Koman 
dominion and to establish themselves as an inde- 



146 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

pendent people. They took arms, we are told ; they 
freed the cities of Britain from the attacks of the 
barbarians, and they refused to live ajiy longer 
according to the laws of Eome*. No account could 
be more trustworthy on the face of it, if we are to 
understand the story of a struggle of the inhabitants 
of Koman Britain, forsaken by their Koman masters 
and protectors, against the barbarians of their own 
island. But, unless we are to suppose an unrecorded 
invasion from the continent beaten back by native 
British valour, it is hard to see the connexion between 
the new barbarian movements in Gaul and the 
assertion of British independence. It will be remem- 
bered that there was a difficulty of the same kind 
when the changes in Britain which led to the whole 
career of Constantine were connected in a not very 
intelligible way with the great invasion of Gaul f. 

Yet, whatever we may say as to the relations of 
particular events to one another, the general fact 
which Zosimos records is none the less certain, none 
the less important in the general history of the world. 
In these few words which he drops as it were by 
chance he gives us the key to the whole later history 
of Britain ; he tells us in short why we are and 

* The story in Zosimos, vi. 5, must be taken together to see its 
full difficulty, not to say contradiction ; Tepovnos . . . iiraviarqa-t 
KaviTTavTivai roiis fv KeXrots ^ap^dpovs. Upog ovs ovk avTi,(T)(aiv 6 Kav- 
tTTavrlvos are dfj tov irXeiovos rrjs Swdpecos pe'povs ovros iv 'l^Tjpia, irdvra 
KOT i^ovcriav eTriofTes ol vnep tov 'Prjvov ^dp^apoi KareaTrjcrav els dvayKfjV 
Tovs T€ Tr]v BperavviKriv vrjcrov oIkovvtus Koi twv iv KeKrois i6v5>v evia ttjs 
'Pdfiaicov dpxrjs drroaT^vai Koi Kad iavrov ^loreveiv^ ovKeri rots Tovrav 
inraKovovTa vopois. 

t See above, p. 44. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 147 

what we are instead of being like our neighbours 
in Gaul and Spain. That there is in any part of the 
world an English folk speaking the English tongue 
is largely owing to the facts which lurk in the short 
statement that the Britons took up arms and set free 
their cities. The existence of a British people in 
Britain, a British people free, bearing arms and 
knowing well how to wield them, was an essential 
condition of the growth of an English people in 
Britain. When our turn soon came to take our 
greatest part in the general Wandering,we had another 
work to do from that which fell to the lot of Goths, 
Vandals, and Franks. They had hardly more to do 
than to receive the submission of Eomans; the con- 
quest was so easy that they themselves were con- 
quered ; in speech, in much besides speech, the 
Goth and the Frank became Eomans. We had 
not to receive the submission of Eomans but to 
overcome the long and stubborn resistance of in- 
dependent Britons. The Eoman of Gaul made in 
the end the moral conquest of the Frank, because 
he never overcame him, never faced him, on the 
field of battle. The Briton had no chance of making 
the moral conquest of the Angle or the Saxon, 
because year after year he withstood him, face to 
face and hand to hand, in defence of a land which 
was his own land and not the land of a foreign master. 
The difference is written on the whole history of the 
fifth and sixth centuries. The Angle and the Saxon 
won Britain in fight, in fight, not against Eomans, but 
against Britons. The Teutonic invaders of Britain did 
not turn their arms against one another till they were 

L 2 



148 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

well settled in the land. The Frank won Gaul in 
fight ; but it was almost wholly in fight with fellow 
Teutons that he won it. Save in the new-born 
British peninsula, there were no avowed Celtic 
enemies to fight with ; with Bomans, that is with 
Celts who had become Eomans, the Frank had to 
fight only at that one stage when he won the Eoman 
remnant of Syagrius. And there again we are 
followed by the thought whether, at Constantinople 
at least, Syagrius was not held for a tyrant and 
Chlodowig for a loyal officer of Augustus. In truth 
Gaul is what it now is, Britain is what it now is, 
because there was no day on Gaulish soil like the day 
when Saxon Cerdic had to fall back for a moment 
before the might of British Arthur. 

Britain, forsaken by Eome, had fallen away from 
Borne. Terminus had withdrawn within the lands 
on his own side of the stream of Ocean. And Eome 
herself had presently to look the fact in the face ; 
she had to come as near to formally acknowledging 
the fact as the proud forms of Eoman diplomacy 
would allow. Another passage of Zosimos, thrust 
strangely into the narrative of a wholly different 
series of events, tells us again in a casual way that 
Honorius sent letters to the cities of Britain bidding 
them guard themselves* (4lo). If we can put any 

* In Zosimos, vi. 10, in the midst of the story of Alaric and 
Attains, we read suddenly ; 'Opcoplov 8e ypdfifiacri npos ras iv BpeTravlq 
Xpr](Tapevov noXfis <j)v\dTTf(T6ai irapayyiXkovai, Scopeals re dpei'^afievov 
Toiis arpaTiaras (k twv irapa 'HpaKXfiavov TrepCJidevTav ;)(pj;)LiaT6)i', 6 fieu 
Ovapios T]v tv paarcovrj Trdcrji rrfv twv d7ravTa)(ov (rTparicarmp inKmao'dpevos 
evvoiav. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 149 

trust in the chronology of this most confused narra- 
tive, these letters were sent in the year of the fall of 
Rome, but before its fall, while Constantine was still 
reigning in Southern Gaul. It is not wonderful then 
if writers in Britain saw a more direct connexion 
than there really was between the taking of the 
Roman city and the end of the Roman power in 
Britain ''^ The notice in Z6simos certainly looks 
like a formal recognition of the fact that Rome could 
no longer keep any dominion in Britain, and we 
cannot help connecting his words with an entry in 
that one among the continental annalists who seems 
to have kept the most careful eye on British affairs. 
He, one of the bearers, by whatever right, of the name 
of Prosper, speaks, though in vague language, certainly 
of a decay, perhaps of an utter ending, of the Roman 
power in Britain, not in the year of the taking of 
Rome, but i n the year just before it f (408). The letters 
of Honorius would seem to imply a withdrawal of 
Roman legions from Britain, if only we could con- 
ceive any Roman legions remaining there after the 
crossing of Constantine into Gaul, and still more 
after the complete separation of Britain from the 
Roman dominion which Zosimos himself had recorded 
a few chapters before. And the letters from Honorius 
to the Britons would seem to imply some application 
from the Britons to Honorius, which is again some- 
what puzzling, as one would have thought that, 
in the year 4O8 or 409, the Roman power would in 

* See the extracts in note, p. 11. 

t Prosper Tiro, Koncalli, 748 ; " xv. Hon. Hac tempestate prse 
valetudine [?] Romanorum attenuatae Britanniae." 



150 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

British eyes have been represented by Constantine. 
Yet it might be that, having seen how little 
Constantine could help them, the Britons betook 
themselves to Honoring as their last chance. In 
any case, whatever may have been the exact details 
and the exact chronological order, Zosimos and the 
annalist cannot fail to refer to the same general 
course of events, a course of events which carried 
with it the separation of Britain from the Koman 
Empire. 

It is not easy to reconcile these notices of British 
affairs in the continental writers with the traditions 
which lingered in the island itself, and which are 
handed down to us by later British and still later 
English writers. Yet the notices in Zosimos and 
in the so-called Prosper must refer to the same 
events as those which, in Gildas and after him in 
Beeda, take the shape of two embassies from Britain 
to Rome. Of these the former leads to the sending 
of a legion, which drives back the enemy and then 
goes away *. The barbarians then come again ; 
a second embassy leads to the sending of a second 
legion, which, after more victories, goes away, and 
the Komans leave the island for ever f. And these 

* Gildas, 12 ; "Mox destinatur legio prseteriti mali immemor, 
sufficienter armis instructa : quae ratibus trans oceanum in patriam 
advecta, et cominus cum gravibus hostibus congressa, magnamque 
ex eis multitudinem sternens, et omnes a finibus depulit, et suhjectos 
cives tarn atroci dilaceratione et imminenti captivitate liberavit." 
This is copied by Bseda, i. 12, wbo gives here "cseteros sociorum 
finibus expulit." 

t Gildas, 1 4 ; tells this with such a wonderful mass of metaphors 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. isi 

two expeditions are in. the mind of Gildas connected 
with two great works of Koman power in the island. 
When the first legion withdraws, the Britons are 
told to build them a wall to keep out the enemy. 
They throw up a dyke only, which proves of no use. 
The second legion therefore, before it goes away, 
builds a stone wall, and further defends the south 
coast, as being most exposed to the barbarians — that 
is clearly to the Saxons — with a regular belt of 
towers, which may suggest the ma,rtellos of a much 

and other flights of fine writing that the plain English under- 
standing of Bseda failed to grasp his meaning. When Gildas said 
that the Roman troops " terribiles inimicorum ungues cervicibus 
infligunt mucronum casibusque foliorum tempore certo assimulan- 
dam istam peragunt stragem," Bseda thought it all meant that the 
legion came in the fall ; "Mittitur legio quae inopinata tempori auc- 
tumni adveniens magnas hostium strages dedit." The facts of Gildas, 
14, so far as they can be dug out of the rhetoric, seem to stand 
thus ; " Mittuntur . . . legati . . . impetrantes a Romanis auxilia. . . . 
At illi . . . cursus accelerantes . . . inimicorum . .. . peragunt stragem 
atque ... si qua tamen evadere potuerant, propere trans maria 
fugaverunt." But what follows, fine writing as it is, is worthy of 
notice, because it contains the same general idea which we get 
from Zosimos, that of armed Britons defending themselves ; " Ro- 
mani patria reversi, denuntiantes nequaquam se tam laboriosis 
expeditionibus posse frequentius vexari, et, ob imbelles errati- 
cosque latrunculos, Romana stigmata, tantum talemque exercitum, 
terra ac mari fatigari ; sed ut insula potius, consuescendo armis ac 
viriliter dimicando., terram, substantiolam, conjuges, liberos, et, 
quod his majus est, Ubertatem vitamque totis yiribus vindicaret, et 
gentibus nequaquam se fortioribus, nisi segnitia et torpore dissolve- 
rentur, ut inermes vinculis vinciendas nullo modo, sed instructas 
peltis, ensibus, hastis, et ad csedem promptas protenderent manus, 
suadentes." 

Bseda, (i. 12) gives a rational abridgement of this tall talk. 



152 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

later day. Here we plainly have a confused memory 
of the more northern dyke of Antoninus, and of the 
more southern wall of Hadrian, Severn s, and Theo- 
dosius *. We have here got into an atmosphere of 
legend ; yet these two embassies clearly answer to 
the two notices in Zosimos, though oddly enough 
while the Greek writer attributes the driving back 
of the barbarians to the valour of the independent 

* Gildas, 1 2 ; after the first legion's coming, adds ; " Quos 
[cives] jussit [seemingly legio\ inter duo maria constituere trans 
insulam murum, ut esset arcendis hostibus turba instructus terrori 
civibusque tutamini : qui vulgo irrationabili absque rectore, factis 
non tarn lapidibus quam cespitibus non profuit." Then, 1 4 ; before 
the departure of the second legion, " Eomani . . . murum, non ut 
alterum sumptu publico privatoque, adjunctis secum miserabilibus 
indigenis, solito structurse more, tramite a mari usque ad mare 
inter urbes, qui ibidem forte ob metum hostium collocatse fuerant, 
directo librant ; fortia formidoloso populo monita tradunt, exem- 
plaria institueudorum armorum relinquunt. In litore quoque 
Oceani ad meridianam plagam, qua naves eorum habebantur, quia 
ut inde barbarise ferse bestise timebantur, turres per intervalla 
ad prospectum maris collocant, valedicunt tamquam ultra non 
reversuri." Gildas himself had clearly no notion of either wall 
belonging to an earlier time. Bseda, on the other hand, had 
already recorded the building of the wall of Severus (5), and 
clearly knew both walls. He therefore, in his abridgement of 
Gildas' rhetoric, puts in the words " ubi et Severus quondam 
vallum fecerat," and adds some details and measurements. The 
writer of the analysis of Gildas' chapters does the like. But both 
these writers seem not to have known that the northern wall was 
earlier ; so Bseda describes it with some minuteness as a work of 
this time. 

Bseda knew his Eoman history a great deal better than Gildas. 
That is to say, at his distance of time, he had really read and 
thought about it. Gildas, so much nearer to the time, simply sets 
down the careless traditions of his own day. 



J 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 153 

islanders, the Briton gives the credit to Eoman legions 
sent over for that purpose. Yet Gildas is perhaps a 
little disposed to undervalue the merits of his countr}'^- 
men, and the account in Zosimos agrees far better with 
the real state of things on the continent at the time. 
Even amid the rhetoric of Gildas the Britons are left 
with arms in their hands, and arms which they knew 
how to wield. But left they are; the Briton has 
now to defend himself how he can without Eoman 
help. No dates are given to these events by Gildas or 
Bseda; but the English Chronicler, who says nothing 
of the two embassies, records the final departure of 
the Komans with a distinct date. But we see 
a strong legendary element in his story also when 
he tells how that eight or nine years after the taking 
of Kome and the end, as far as Britain was concerned, 
of Eoman rule, the Eomans in Britain gathered 
together their hoards and hid part in the ground 
and carried the rest over to Gaul *. The hiding in 

* Chron. 418; "Her Eomane gesomnodan al J)a goldhord ]?e 
on Bretene wseron, and sume on eor]?an ahyddan, j^set hie nsenig 
mon sy]3]?an findan ne mealite ; and sume mid him on Gallia 
laeddon." 

It is curious to contrast these accounts put together from various 
sources with the version of the loss of Britain given by Procopius, 
Bell. Vand. i. 2. He looks on the separation of Britain from 
Rome as accomplished by the assumption of the purple by Con- 
stantine ; of the earlier tyrants he makes no mention. And it is 
to be noticed that he speaks more respectfully of Constantine than 
most writers. It is not clear how far he understood the actual 
state of things in Gaul and Spain. His words are ; Bperrapla 8e 17 
p^aos 'Pafiaiav ajreWi;, ot tc iKiivrj crrpaTiSiTai, jBaaiXea or^io-i Kutvarav- 
tIvou flXovTo, ovK d(l)av^ avbpa, os 8fj avTiKa (ttoXov re ayeipas vqS>v Kai 
arpaTiav Xdyov d^iav.fs 'la-iraviav re Koi TaWiav a>s 8ov\a>a6/iepus arpara 



154 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

the ground is of course a guess to explain the 
frequent finding of Koraan coins ; but one would 
think that there must be some groundwork in fact 
for the space of nine years which the story makes 
between the time when Eoman Emperors ceased to 
rule in Britain and the time when the Komans 
themselves left Britain. But it is certainly hard to 
find in the year 418, the year of the twelfth con- 
sulship of Honorius and the eighth of the younger 
Theodosius, anything recorded in which we can 
recognize the minutely dated fact of our own 
Chronicler. 

But it is of the deepest importance that, throughout 
this story, not only in the English Chronicler so long 
after, but in the British Jeremiah of the next century, 
the Komans in Britain and out of Britain are looked 

/xeyaXoj eare^aXXev. Then we hear of Honorius designing to fly to 
Africa and generally of his relations to Attains, down to the death 
of Alaric. Then we get hack to Gaul and Britain. Constantino 
is, strangely enough, overcome by the "West-Goths under Atawulf, 
a clear confusion between two sets of events. Gaul seems to be thus 
looked on as recovered to the Empire ; but Britain was not won 
back, and remained under tyrants ; 6 tSv OvKnyoTdav a-rparos, rjyov- 
fievov (T(pi<riv ASaovX^ov, em TaWias ex(ipr]<Tav, nai KavaTamlvos f^axjl 
i](r(TTjdf\s ^vv Tols iraia-l dvrjaKei. Bperraviap fxeVTOi 'Tafjiaioi dva(T(o(Te(T6ai 
ovKe'ri i'<TX0V, oKK' ov<ra vno Tvpuvvois an avTov ep,eve. It is not clear 
who these tyrants were, any more than those mentioned by Jerome 
in the famous passage on the fertility of Britain in the growth of 
that brood, Epist. xliii. ad Ctes. (see Gibbon, cap. xxxi. note 186). 
But Procopius seems to look on Britain as ceasing to be Homan 
on the appearance of a tyrant within it, a view which was certainly 
not taken by Constantino himself. The notion of the unity of 
the Empire was doubtless stronger at Constantinople than at 
Aries, or even at Ravenna. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 155 

on as a separate people, wholly apart from the natives 
of the island. The Britons are not themselves spoken 
of as Bomans. The Komans are another set of men, 
spoken of as the English might be spoken of now 
with reference to India, They are a people who are 
in the land, but who may possibly go away. We 
shall better take in the full force of this way of 
speaking, if we fancy the language which Gildas uses 
applied to Provence or Aquitaine by a contemporary 
of Gildas, say by Gregory himself To such an one 
the notion of Eomans as a separate people, distinct 
from the people of the land, a people who might con- 
ceivably pack up their goods and go away, would 
have been utterly unintelligible. To such an one 
the Koman name simply took in the whole free popu- 
lation of the land, save any barbarian new-comers of 
yesterday. Sidonius was a Eoman ; even Gregory, 
under Frankish rule, was still a Eoman ; but Gildas 
was not. The fact proves volumes as to the utter 
unlikeness between the story of Britain in these ages 
and the story of Gaul. No one denies that the 
political occupation of Eoman Britain was as thorough 
as the occupation of Eoman Gaul ; the point on which 
these notices and all our notices and the whole evi- 
dence of history and language goes to prove is that 
the people of Eoman Britain, Eomans as they doubtless 
were by the edict of Antoninus, never became Eomans 
in habits, speech, and feeling, like the great mass of 
the people of Gaul and Spain. The fact that the 
British tongue is still spoken in Britain is of only 
less moment than the fact that the English tongue is 
spoken. It is no small part of the evidence which 



156 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

shows the utter contrast between the state of the 
island and the state of the mainland in the days 
of which we are speaking. Britain was part of the 
Eoman dominion ; Gaul had become in the strictest 
sense Eomania. The Komans, as a distinct people, 
could go away from Britain and leave the land to 
its own folk. A clearing out of the Eomans from 
Gaul would have meant something very near to 
a clearing out of the whole population of the land. 

Our immediate story, the story of the great bar- 
barian invasion of Gaul and of all that came of it, has 
brought us so near to the coming of our own folk 
into our own land that we may go on, if only by way 
of episode, a little further. The age in which all that 
we know of Britain, of now independent Britain, 
comes from incidental and isolated notices has now 
set in. The next notice of dealings between Kome 
and Britain in temporal matters comes when the 
famous groans of the Britons went up to Aetius, thrice 
consul* (443). But, before we reach that date, we 
have two notices of the island in continental annalists. 
One undoubted contemporary speaks of the growth of 
the Pelagian heresy in Britain, and how PopeCoelestine 
sent Saint German of Auxerre, him whose name still 

* It is worth contrasting tlie scholar Bgeda with Gildas, "With 
the Briton Aetius is simply " Eomanse potestatis vir." Bseda tells 
us how " Aetius vir inlustris qui et patricius fuit, tertio cum 
Symmacho gessit consulatum." Gildas too merely says, as the 
result of the letter, " nee pro eis quidquam adjutorii habent." 
Bseda gives a reason, because Aetius " gravissimis eo tempore bellis 
cum Blsedla et Attila regibus Hunnorum erat occupatus." He goes 
on with a good deal more about Attila. The Winchester and 
Peterborough Chroniclers abridge Bseda. The others are silent. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 157 

lives by the Tamar and by the Ouse, to recover those 
who had fallen away * (429). In later writers the mis- 
sion of German, the mission of German and Lupus, the 
second mission of German and Severus, are connected 
in a way which we should hardly have looked for with 
our own settlement in the island. German helps, in his 
saintly or prophetic character, towards the overthrow 
of a host, which, clearly before any date that has been 
given to the coming of ^lle or Hengest, numbered 
Saxons in its ranks as well as Picts. It is our own 
Baeda who tells the tale, and who tells it in so 
strangely casual a way as to make it clear that he is 
following British records or traditions f. We are 
tempted to connect these hints with two notices in 

* Prosper mentions the Pelagian heresy in the year 413. In 429 
he speaks of its progress in Britain, and adds ; " Ad actionem 
Palladii diaconi, papa Coelestinus Germanum Autissiodorensem 
episcopum vice sua mittit, et deturbatis hsereticis Britannos ad 
catholicam fidem dirigit." 

+ Bseda's account of the two missions begins in i. 17, where it 
oddly follows the first coming of the English and the exploits of 
Aurelius Ambrosius. The story goes on through several chapters. 
In c. 17 the Pelagian heresy is said to have broken out; "paucos 
sane annos ante eorum [Anglorum] adventum." German, Bishop of 
Auxerre, and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, are sent, not by Pope 
Celestine, but by a synod of the Bishops of Gaul. In c. 20, 
" Saxones Pictique " are the enemies whom German helps to over- 
throw at the Alleluia victory. In c. 21 German goes to Ravenna, 
"pro pace Armoricanse gentis supplicaturus " — a saying in itself to 
be noticed. He is well received by Valentinian and his mother 
Placidia. All this therefore happened before Placidia's death in 
450. The death of German is placed in 448 and his second 
mission in 447 ; but the Saxons appear during the first mission, 
that of 429. 



158 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

the annalist who cares most for British affairs, one of 
which has been already referred to. The words in 
which he seems to record the overthrow of the Eoman 
power in Britain are strangely mixed up with the 
Vandal, Alan, and Suevian movements in Gaul and 
Spain, with the usurpation of Constantine, with 
a Saxon harrying of Gaul which has been already 
spoken of, and with the taking of Kome itself*. By 
a little sifting, most of these events fit nearly into 
their right years, which brings more nearly home to 
us the possibility that the weakening of the power of 
Eome in Britain and the Saxon incursion in Gaul 
which presently follow may have had something to 
do with one another. His next note of British affairs 
is far more distinct, far more important. Whatever 
we think of its date, the meaning of the statement is 
clear enough. It comes seventeen years after the last 
entry (425), that is, a good deal sooner than we should 
have looked for it. Four years before the mission of 
German, eighteen years before our own Chronicles 
place the appeal to Aetius, twenty-four years before 
they place the beginning of Teutonic conquest in 
Britain, the so-called Prosper tells us that Britain, 
worn out by endless slaughters and revolutions, was 
brought under the power of the Saxons f. This is 
perhaps the last notice from outside either of the island 
or of those who were settling in it, till the mention 

* The entry of Prosper Tiro quoted p. 149 note, is significantly 
followed by the words quoted above, about " Saxonum incursions 
devastatam Galliarum partem." 

t "Theod. xviii. [425] Britannise usque ad hoc tempus variis 
cladibus eventibusque laceratae in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur." 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 159 

of Britain bj the great historian of the next age, 
which shows how utterly the island had passed away 
from Koman thought, how it had become a land of 
fable about which any wild story might safely be told. 
When Belisarius, in exchange for the Gothic offer of 
Sicily, offered Britain as an ancient land of the 
Empire, it must have sounded somewhat more 
strange than if one of the later kings of England 
had offered Normandy or Aquitaine*. He knew that 
the island was greater than Sicily; further than that 
we may judge of his knowledge by that of his 
historian. There was the isle of Brettania to the 
west ; there was the more wonderful isle of Brittia 
to the north, the isle of marvels and mysteries, the 
isle to which the souls of the dead were rowed by 
night, the isle where the men of old had built 
a mighty wall from north to south, on the eastern 
side of which men were still in the world of ordinary 
life, while to the west of the bulwark are only worms 
and evil beasts and a deadly air which of itself slays 
the man who ventures on the enchanted ground. So 
soon had the greatest work of Eoman power in Britain 
passed away into the realms of fable. It is more 
pleasant to hear of threefold folk of the land, British, 
Frisian, and English — the Saxon strangely has no 
place in the reckoning of Constantinople — of the 
English, stoutest of all barbarians in the warfare of 
men who scorned the help of horses, of their valiant 
lady, forerunner of ^thelburh and ^thelfl^ed, who 

* Proc. Bell. Goth. ii. 6 ; 'H/nels 8e rdr^ots Bperravlav okrjv (Tvyxco- 
povfiep i'x^iv, fiei^oi to Trapa noXv SiKeXt'as ovcrav Koi 'Papaiav KaTr\Koov to 
dveKadev y€y€vrjft.evrjv. 



160 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

led her host beyond the sea to chastise her faithless 
lover. To be sure we have to put up with hints that 
the Frankish kings claimed the overlordship of the 
island, and how when an English envoy found his 
way to the court of Justinian, he came in the following 
of the embassy of a proud Merwing who would have 
Augustus decree that Britain was his*. Need we 

* All these strange details come from the famous twentieth 
chapter of the fourth, book of the Gothic War. I have spoken 
of some of them in Appendix C. to the first volume of the Norman 
Conquest. Nothing can be plainer than that here Bpirria and not 
BpeTTavia is Britain. We cannot be wrong about an island which 
contains both English and Britons. But in the passage quoted in 
the last note the Bperjavia which is offered to the Goths must have 
been the real island of Britain rather than the imaginary island of 
Britanny. So in Bell. Yand. i. 2, BpeTravla fj vrjaos which revolts 
from the Romans and where the soldiers choose Constantine must 
be Britain and not Britanny. The confusion in short is hopeless ; 
but one may guess that in Procopius' day the peninsula would be 
fully established by the name of BperTavia, and moreover much 
more would be heard about it than about the island. Still the 
evident belief in BpeTravia and BpiTTia as two islands and the 
division of the history of the real island between the two is very 
perplexing. There is something singular in the omission of the 
Saxons, who elsewhere are so much more prominent than the 
Angles. A Frisian element in the settlement is in every way 
likely ; but it is odd that it should altogether displace the Saxons. 
And there is something strange also in which he speaks of Angles, 
Frisians, and Britons as if they were all alike natural inhabitants 
of the island. The oldest picture of the English is pleasing; but 
our national habit of fighing on foot is exaggerated by Procopius 
into utter ignorance of the horse. The passage which most concerns 
our general story is that which describes the nations of the island 
and their relations to the Franks ; 

BpiTTiav be r^v injaov edinj rpia TrdkvnvQpairoTaTa f)(ov(ri, ^aaiXevs 
re els avrStv eKatrro) e<^eaTr}Kev. ovopara he Kelrai rots edvetri tovtois 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i6i 

press the argument further % Can any reasonable 
man believe that the land of which such fables could 
be told in the ears of Procopius, of Belisarius, and 
Justinian, was still a land Koman in speech and law 
like the land over which the Goth, the Burgundian, 
and the Frank had cast a slight veneer of the speech 
and law of the German ? 

We may have some other time for trying more 
fullv to examine and reconcile all these notices : to 
bring them into strict chronological harmony is hard 
indeed. Yet nothing is more likely than that some 
of those unrecorded English settlements in the 
eastern and northern parts of the land which helped 
not a lijttle to make England may have come before 

'AyytXoi re Koi ^plfTcroves Koi ot rrj vrjaa 6fiu>vvfioi BpiTTcoves. Toaavrr) 
be ff TCdvhe rav idvaiu TroXvavBpoania (f)aiveTat oiiaa more dva tvclv eros 
Kara ttoKKovs ivBivhe jjieTavicrrdfievoi ^vv yvpai^l koi TfOKnv es ^pdyyovs 
XcopovtTiv. ol 8e avTovs evoiKi^ovaiv es yrjs ttjs (T(j)eTepas ttjv ipr}p.0Tepav 
8oKov(rav eivai, koL ott avrov ttjv vrjdov •npocnroulcrBai (^aaiv. aycrre ap,eKei 
oil TToXXa irporepop 6 ^pdyyav fiacriXevs irn Trpecr^eia tuv ol emrrjdeicov 
Tivas irapa ^aaikea 'lovtrriviapov es Bv^dvriov crreiXas avdpas avTois eit 
ratv 'AyyiXatv ^vviirep^^e, (jiiKoTiiiovpevos as koI tj vrjaos f}8e irpbs avrov 
apxerai. 

There is something very strange in this account of the great 
numbers of the three nations in Britain and their overflow into Gaul. 
It must be some confused version of the Armorican migration, to 
which we are just coming; but, as Procopius tells the tale, the settlers 
may just as well have been Angles or Frisians as Britons. That 
two of the three nations were conquerors who drove out the third 
he gives no hint. It is possible that he may have mixed up the 
flight of the Britons with crossings of Saxon invaders from one 
side of the Channel to the other. 

The passage about the wall is stranger still. But nothing 
brings out better the main point, the distinction between the state 
of Britain and that of Gaul. 

M 



162 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [iv. 

the more memorable landings of Hengest, ^^EUe, and 
Cerdic. It is possible that Saint German, on his 
mission to Britain, may have come across warriors 
from some of those Teutonic colonies of unrecorded 
date which grew into the later kingdoms of East- 
Anglia, Deira, Bernicia, and Mercia*. The chief 
diiflculty is that the strong language of the 
annalist could hardly be used of a time when the 
lands which were to be Kent, Sussex, and Wessex 
were still British, lands whose fate would be much 
more likely to interest a continental writer than the 
lands further to the North. But these points do not 
immediately concern us. Our business now is rather 
to take the Eomans out of Britain than to bring the 
English into it. It is enough for us that, before 
the end of the reign of Honorius, before the end of the 
years with which we are specially concerned, the first 
land that bore the British name had ceased to be one 
of the lands to which decrees went forth from Caesar 
Augustus. The last land of the West to be won, it 
was the first to fall away. Between the conquest of 
Britain and its separation another part of the Empire 
had seen the conquest and the separation of Dacia. 
But Dacia had not fallen away in the same sense as 
Britain ; it had rather been found wise to give it up 
to an invading enemy. But now that the insular 
Britain had set the example, that example was 
followed by a land which soon came to be reckoned 
as a second Britain, if indeed it had not begun to 
put on that character already. At least from this 
time, most likely even from an earlier time, the 
* See Norman Conquest, i. 26. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. 163 

north-western peninsula of Gaul, balancing in its 
geographical position the south-western peninsula of 
Britain, was beginning to take to itself the name and 
the nature of a British land. We may believe that, 
even in the most flourishing days of Eoman dominion, 
this corner of Gaul, so well fitted, as the experience 
of later ages has shown, to be the last abiding-place 
of an ancient folk and an ancient speech, had kept 
traces of the tongue and the traditions of ancient 
days which were little dreamed of in Eomanized 
Lugdunum and Burdigala. Such relics of former 
times needed only to be strengthened, to be kept up 
by settlers from other lands where they had never 
died out, and there might again come into being, in 
this one corner of the West, a land as purely Celtic 
as though no part of Gaul beyond the Alps had ever 
been reckoned as a province of Eome. Such a 
strengthening was undoubtedly supplied by the im- 
migration of Britons from the insular Britain fleeing 
before the swords of Teutonic conquerors. Such, to 
quote no other writer, not to dwell on long-abiding 
tradition, is the distinct judgement of Einhard, 
the very clear assertion of a very clear-headed 
man*. That assertion it would need some strong 
contemporary evidence to set aside, and no such 
evidence is forthcoming. Indeed the saying of 

* See the distinct statement of Einhard, Ann. 786. Charles 
the Great " exercitum in Brittanniam cismarinam mittere constituit. 
Nam cum ah Anglis ac Saxonibus Brittannia insula fuisset invasa, 
magna pars incolarum ejus traiciens, in ultimis Gallise finibus 
Venetorum et Coriosolitarum regiones occupavit. Is populus a 
regibus Francorum subactus et tributarius factus," &c. 

M 2 



164 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [IT. 

Procopius about the crowds of Britons who yearly 

took refuge in the dominions of the Franks, is the 

saying of a writer with nothing hke the clearness of 

Einhard, but much nearer to the time ; and it looks 

the same way. That there was an Armorican 

migration, a migration from the greater Britain to the 

land which became the lesser, there can be no 

reasonable ground for doubting. The only question 

is as to its date. And we may be sure that it began 

early in the days of Teutonic conquest in the insular 

Britain. For in the sixth century the continental, 

the lesser Britain is distinctly marked as a land 

having a settled being of its own, with its own 

people, its own princes, quite apart from anything in 

the rest of Gaul. It is plain that, long before the end 

of the fifth century (468), there was a British people 

in this part of Gaul, Britons of the Loire, who played 

a considerable part in Gaulish affairs, who appear as 

the allies of the Koman and the Frank, as the 

enemies of the Goth and the Saxon, as spreading 

themselves inland as far as the land, perhaps as the 

city, of the Bituriges, and as driven out of that 

distant possession by the arms of the Gothic Euric. 

The Britons of Gaul, the Britons of the Loire, had 

their deeds recorded in annals which formed part 

of the materials both of the Goth Jordanis and 

of Gregory of Tours, and there is more than one 

reference to their presence in the writings of Sidonius 

of Auvergne*. At this date at least they are 

* The first mention of Britanny or Britons in Gregory of Tours 
is in the passage ii. 18, 19, which seems clearly to be copied from 
annals. The earliest fact about them is "Brittani de Bituricis 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. les 



a recognized people, one of the nations of Gaul, with 
a prince of their own, called of some a king, who 

a Gothis expulsi sunt, multis apud Dolensen vicum peremptis." 
This must not be taken for the Breton g-wasi-metropolis of Dol. 
The place is D^ols in Berry. This note comes among a series of 
entries from which we gather that Eomans, Franks, and Bretons — 
Wealas in short and those who were to become Wealas — were 
on one side, while Saxons and Goths are on the other. The date 
seems to be 468. Later notices in Gregory are common. 

The event recorded by Gregory is told at greater length by Jorda- 
nis, Getica, 45; "Anthemius imperator Brittonum solatia postulavit, 
quorum rex Kiotimus cum duodecim millibus veniens in Bituricas 
civitatem Oceano e navibus egressus susceptus est. Ad quod rex 
Vesegothorum Eurichus innumerum ductans advenit exercitum diu- 
que pugnans Eiotimum Brittonum regem, antequam Romani in ejus 
societatem conjungerentur, effagavit." Riotimus fled to Burgundy. 
Sidonius refers to all this in his letter to Vincentius about the 
affair of the prefect Arvandus (see Gibbon, eh. xxxvi. vol. vi. p. 198, 
ed. Milner). Arvandus was said to have dictated a treasonable 
letter to Euric ; " Hsec ad regem Gothorum carta videbatur emitti, 
pacem cum Grseco imperatore dissuadens, Britannos super Ligerim 
sitos impugnari oportere demonstrans, cum Burgundionibus jure 
gentium Gallias dividi debere." In iii. 9 we have a letter from 
Sidonius to E,iothamus, clearly the same as the Eiotimus of 
Jordanis, in which he speaks of one who " mancipia sua, Britannis 
clam soUicitantibus, deplorat." This is about 472. 

The phrase " Grgecus imperator" is odd. It is not a Eoman, 
though it is a Gothic, way of speaking of the Eastern colleague, 
and it has been thought not to mean Leo, but to be a sneering 
way of pointing at Anthemius, the Western Emperor sent by Leo. 
Yet Sidonius could write (Can. xxii. 30) in the Panegyric of this 
very Anthemius, 

" Salve, sceptorum columen, regina Orientis, 
Orbis Eoma tui, rerum mihi principe misso, 
Jam non Eoo solum veneranda Quiriti, 
Imperii sedes, sed plus pretiosa, quod exit 
Imperii genitrix." 



166 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv: 

played a part in the general politics of the land. 
This prince, Eiotimus by name, appears by that name 
in the story of Jordanis and he is numbered among 
the correspondents of the poet-bishop. And this 
people is found ranged alongside of the same allies and 
in face of the same enemies against whom we should 
look to find them ranged. The Wecdas of either 
world, Uiim-Wehli, Gal-Welsh, Br ef -Welsh, with their 
ally the Frank, still the faithful soldier of Rome, 
against the more-abiding Teutonism of the Goth and 
the still young barbaric life of the Saxon. The 
continental Britons could hardly have gained this 
position, if their first migration had happened after 
449. We may rather believe that the migration of 
those who fled from the Saxon seax merely 
strengthened a British element which had already 
taken root on Gaulish soil. The beginnings of this 
earlier British settlement have been with much 
likelihood attributed to the days of the elder tyrant 
Maximus *. Their coming however made no im- 
mediate change in the provincial nomenclature of the 
Empire. The only Britain known to the Notitia 
Imperii is still the island ; the continental Britain, 
perhaps already so called in common speech, is not 
entered among the divisions of Gaul. The Lesser 
Britain was in no way distinguished from the 
Greater in either the older or the younger form of 
the Koman tongue, as in the tongue of the Saxon 
conqueror it has come to be by a slight difference in 
the form of the name. But in the great survey of 
the Empire the Lesser Britain is still hidden under 
* See Wietersheim, ii. 71, 166. 



I 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i67 

the general name of Armorica, a name then of far 
wider extent, taking in at least so much of Gaul 
as lay between the Seine and the Loire *. The 
Armorican name seems afterwards to have? shrunk 
Tip into a synonym for the Lesser Britain ; but we 
should be led astray if we put so narrow a sense 
upon the word even in the sixth century. At 
Constantinople, in the days of the Gothic war, the 
Armorican na.me took in those lands between Seine 
and Loire which became the kernel of Francia in the 
later sense, while the lesser Britain seems to have 
shared the fate of the greater, to have become the 
subject of the wildest fables, and to have been looked 
on, no longer as a peninsula of the mainland, but as 
another island like the land whose name it had taken f. 

* See the "Dux Tractus Armoricani," Notitia Imperii, iii, 106. 
His jurisdiction takes in Avranches, Coutances, and Rouen, and 
is further extended over five provinces, Aquitania Prima et 
Secunda, Senonia, Secunda Lugdunensis et Tertia. He too has 
"Littus Saxonicum." See Booking's Dissertation, v. 817 et seqq. 

t Whatever we make of Procopius' account of the 'Ap^opvxoi in 
Bell. Goth. i. 12, we cannot doubt, First, That the word is the 
same as Armorici or Aremorici, and, Secondly, That it is not meant 
to be confined to the peninsula of Britanny. His story is most 
likely a confused account of the conquest of the Roman land 
of Syagrius by Chlodowig. Its inhabitants did become one people 
with the Franks, which the Bretons have never done. 

So when Sidonius in the passage quoted above, p. 39, uses the 
old formal phrase of "Aremoricus tractus," he certainly does not 
mean Britanny only ; he is perhaps specially thinking of the 
lands that were to be Normandy and Anjou. 

Of the wonderful stories of Procopius I have spoken already. 
He clearly got his tales about Britain and Britanny from some 
quite different source from that where he found his notice of the 



168 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [iv. 

At the stage which we have now reached, when 
the insular Britain had fallen away from the dominion 
of Rome, the example of the islanders is said to have 
been followed by a considerable part of the Gaulish 
mainland. If we can accept the geography of our 
only informant, the spirit of independence spread far 
beyond the region which did in the end put on 
a character apart from the rest of Gaul. It was not 
merely the new continental Britain, but the whole 
Armorican land and other provinces besides, which 
asserted their independence of a power which could 
no longer defend them against barbarian inroads. 
They drove out the officers of the Eoman government 
and set up an independent state of their own *. We 
yearn to know the form of its constitution ; but such 
knowledge is denied us. We may gather from an 
incidental source that the revolution was not brought 
about without changes within as well as without, 
changes, it would seem, social as well as political. 
But from the same source it would also seem that the 
independence of Armorica, at least in the wider sense, 
was not lasting. A few years later (417-420), a poet of 
Southern Gaul could rejoice that Exuperantius, seem- 
ingly Prsefect of the Gauls, had brought back peace 
to the shores of Armorica and had restored the reign 
of law and freedom. The poet's standard of freedom 
may have been different from that of a large part 
of the inhabitants of Armorica. The effect of the 

* Zosimos, vi. 5 J 6 ^Apfiopixos anas Kai erepai TdKarcov eirapxiai, 
Bperavvoiis fiiiirjcTdnevoi, koto, top ktov (T(pas TJkevdepaaav rponov, e/c- 
jSaXXoucrai p.iv tovs 'P(op,aiovs ap)^ovTas, olKelov 8e Kar i^ovcriav noKlrevpa 
KadiiTTaaai. 



IV.] The Barbarian Invaders. i69 

renewed rule of order was that men were no longer 
slaves to their own bondmen *. We need many 
more details before we can judge of the exact force 
of these words, whether they need imply such a 
revolution as had happened of old in the Etruscan 
Volsinii, when personal slaves actually set themselves 
in the seats of their masters. It may be only a poet's 
dark way of describing changes which put power into 
new hands, perhaps in the districts to which such 
a picture would apply, into the hands of the old 
natives of the land strengthened by the new settlers 
of kindred race. The whole subject is dark, and we 
can hardly get beyond probable guesses. We hear 
of further Armorican revolts, and, when the Franks 
made their way into central Gaul, we find the eastern 
part of Armorica in the wide sense, to a great extent 
a Eoman land, a land which clings to its Koman 
standing when Rome herself obeyed a barbarian king. 
But long before that time, as we have just seen, that 
part of Armorica which formed the continental 
Britain was a distinct land, with its own people and 
princes. The inference seems to be that the restora- 
tion of Roman power by Exuperantius was abiding, at 

* Kutilius Namatianus (i. 213) speaks of a kinsman of his 
" Cujus Aremoricas pater Exsuperantius oras 
Nunc postliminium pacis amare docet. 
Leges restituit libertatemque reducit, 
Et servos famulis non sinit esse suis." 
The date (see Tillemont, v. 659) of the poem is shown by an 
astronomical argument to be either 417 or 420. 

In Prosper Tiro (427?) we read, "II [Theodosii] in Galliis 
Exsuperantius praefectus a militibus interficitur." That may be 
the date of the undoing of his work. 



170 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

least for some generations, in Armorica in the wider 
sense, but that in the peninsula which was becoming 
British, if the Eoman power was ever really again 
set up, it was cast off again in one of the later 
revolts. 

This restoration of the Eoman power in Armorica 
was, we can hardly doubt, connected with another 
change in the affairs of Gaul which brought two 
other Teutonic nations to the front in that land, and 
led to a lasting settlement of one of them which has 
affected geography ever since. The Franks, as the 
ruling, or indeed as a leading, people in Gaul, hardly 
come within the strict range of our present inquiry; 
the fascination of our own settlement in the second 
of our three great homes, a fascination the stronger 
because of the darkness in which our coming is 
enwrapped, has carried us on that head somewhat 
beyond our proper limits. But we have come in due 
order to the first settlements of the West-Goths and 
the Burgundians within the lands of the Empire, and 
to the events in the history of the Empire itself, the 
rise and fall of more than one tyrant, by which those 
settlements were accompanied. And before all it will 
bring before us one of the noblest forms in the whole 
history of our race, one of the men to whose lot it 
fell to shape the fates of ages, the kingly form of 
Atawulf the Goth. 



V. 



[WEST-GOTHS AND BUEGUNDIANS.] 

We have to deal now with the settlement on 
Gaulish ground of the West-Goths and of the Bur- 
gundians. The two names call up widely different 
thoughts. The Goths seem to belong wholly to the 
past ; the nation is gone ; the name is gone ; it is 
mere accident through which the people of Atawulf 
and the people of Gaiseric seem still to give kingly 
titles to the sovereigns of Northern Europe, But the 
Burgundian name is so familiar as the name of a land 
of modern Gaul, its intermediate history calls up 
associations so utterly alien to our present tale, that 
it is a little hard to picture to ourselves Burgundians, 
like Goths or Vandals or Saxons, as playing their 
part in the Wandering of the Nations. The Burgun- 
dian name seems in a manner out of place, almost 
as the English name does. Yet when we compare 
the history of the two nations, of the modern-sound- 
ing Burgundians and of the Goths who seem to 
belong to so much more distant an age, we shall 
find that, if the Goths were less abiding as a name — 
it may be doubted whether they were less abiding 
as a nation — they were much longer-lived as a 
political power. The Burgundians, as a people and 
kingdom, enjoyed little more than a century of 
independence, and that independence tempered by 



172 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

a degree of deference to the Empire unusual among 
the nations of Gaul. The Gothic dominion, on the 
other hand, was not swept away, even in Gaul, till 
the days of Saracen conquest in the West. Yet the 
name of Gothic has been for some ages swept away 
from Gauhsh soil, while the endless changes in the 
meaning of the word Burgundy, from the time of 
the first Burgundian settlement down to quite 
modern days, have been among the standing puzzles 
of geography. Both these nations now begin to play 
an important part in Gaulish history. 

The Goths show themselves for the first time on 
Gauhsh soil in the year that followed the fall of Con- 
stantine (412). Very short had been the time of peace, 
the time of union under the acknowledged princes of 
East and West. Perhaps within a twelvemonth of Con- 
stantine's overthrow, tyrants again show themselves 
in Gaul, tyrants who have, as before, to be put down 
by barbarian help ; but who show more distinctly 
than before how very largely their power rested on 
barbarian support. In the year that we have just 
spoken of we read in our annals that the West- 
Goths under Atawulf entered Gaul and that Jovinus 
assumed the purple at MaiDz, by the help of the 
Alan Goar and of the Burgundian Gunthachar. And 
in the following year (413) we read that the Burgun- 
dians obtained the part of Gaul next to the Ehine*. 

* The entries in Prosper are ; 
" 412. Gothi rege Athaulfo Gallias ingressi. 
413. Burgundiones partem Gallise propinquantem Eheno obti- 
nuerunt. 

Jovinus et Sebastianus fratres in Gallia regno arrepto interempti." 



v.] West'Goths and Burgundians. 173 

It must strike us at once that we have now come 
to regular political action in a region whose name 
we have as yet heard only as suffering passing ravage. 
One cannot doubt that the authority of Constantine 
had been acknowledged throughout Eastern Glaul. 
That would be pretty well shown by his being 
acknowledged at once at Trier and at Aries ; but 
Trier is the only point north of the Ehoneland where 
we see distinct traces of him. It is very hard to keep 
ourselves from already speaking of that land as Bur- 
gundy, though the events with which we are now 
concerned are enough to show how much such a 
name would be before the time. We have come, 
not to the first of all the Burgundies in the world, 
but to the first Burgundy within the bounds of 
Gaul. And that Burgundy finds itself, not on the 
lower Bhone, but on the middle Rhine. The centre 
of action is at Mainz, a city of which we heard as 
grievously suffering in the great invasion of five 

This makes rather too short work of two years. 

The other Prosper has ; 

" xviii. [Honorii]. Eursum alia prsedatio Galliarum, Gothis qui 
AJarico duce Romam ceperant, Alpes transgredientibus. 
xix. Jovinus tyrannidem post Constantinum invadit." 

Idatius (see above, p. iiS, note) only mentions the usurpation of 
Jovinus and Sebastian in 412. He does not mention the Goths 
till next year at Narbonne. 

Orosius in the Catalogue of tyrants (vii. 42) says; "Jovinus 
postea vir Galliarum nobilissimus in tyrannidem mox ut assurrexit 
cecidit. Sebastianus frater ejusdem hoc solum ut tyrannus more- 
retur elegit. Nam continuo ut est creatus occisus est." So 

Philostorgios, xii. 8 ; KaTo. Se tovs airovs xpoi/ovs 'Ico^iavos re iiraviarrf , 
els (pQopav CLTvia^r} Koi 2e/3acmai/os ahek^os avTOv rols Xa-ois inocpdaXixTja-as, 



174 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

years earlier ; but which may have risen from its 
ruins as easily as Trier. Of the actors in the move- 
ment, one we have heard of already. He is the 
Alan King Goar who had been won over to the 
Eoman service, but, like most of his fellows, was 
not specially scrupulous as to his strict allegiance 
to any one Roman prince over another*. His 
partner in setting up the new Augustus was the 
head of one of the two Teutonic nations who are now 
winning themselves homes in Gaul, Gunthachar the 
Burgundian. The name of his people has long been 
familiar in the history of the Empire, and a generation 
or more before Gunthachar they had played a great 
part in some of the wars on the Gaulish frontier. 
But, as there is no ground for the legend which 
claimed for them a Eoman origin, neither is there 
any ground for the behef of some scholars that they 
were, before the times with which we are dealing, 
already settled on Gaulish soil f. Burgundians also 

* The best account of the whole story comes from Olympiodoros 
(p- 454 et seqq.). The passage which at present concerns us is 
this ; 'lo^lvos ev Movi'SiaKa ttjs irepas Tepfiavias Kara a-rrovbrjv Toap rod 
AXavov Koi TovvTiapiov os (jivKap)(os exprniari^e tS)v BovpyovvTiovcav 
(j)v\upxos Tvpavvos dvT)yopevdr]. 

Goar is the Alan chief who joined the Eomans in 407. He is 
therefore not marked as (f)v\apxos, while Gunthachar, head of the 
Burgundian nation, is. These names in -char, as they are now 
written, are of course the same as our names in -here. 

There can be no doubt that the Movv^mkov of Olympiodoros 
is Moguntiacum, or Mainz. The form may possibly show that the 
name was already beginning to be shortened. Mediomatrici had 
fully sunk to Mettis in the course of the next century. 

t These points are discussed at great length by Albert Jahn, 
Geschichte der Burgundionen und Burgundiens, i. 237 et seqq. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 175 

find tlieir place in some of the vaguer lists of the 
nations which took a part in the great movement 
of the year 406"'. But we have no distinct account 
of their share, if they had any, in the transactions 
of the last six years. There is nothing to show that 
they bore any part in the general harrying of Gaul ; 
they clearly had none in the partition of the lands. 
Whether they took any part in the wars of Con- 
stantino and his enemies depends on a single most 
confused passage*. On the whole we may safely 
say that, if the Burgundians took any part at all 
in the great events of those memorable years, it was 
not as chief actors, but in the way in which, in those 
days of wandering, stray detachments of almost any 
nations may get mixed up in the acts of any other. 
But if the Burgundians stood aloof from these 
greater movements, they might be thereby the better 
able to settle quietly, almost without notice, in some 
convenient region near to their older seats beyond 
the Ehine. Such a settlement they had clearly made 
by the year following the elevation of Jovinus (413), 
the year in which their occupation of part of Gaul 

The zeal of this author to refer to every writer from the earliest 
days to our own day who has said a word upon the subject 
sometimes makes it hard to dig out his own conclusions. But 
he seems to show with clearness that there is no reason to suppose 
any lasting settlement of the Burgundians in Gaul before that with 
which we are now concerned. 

* In the passage from Gregory quoted above, p. 1 16, Burgundians 
are mentioned in the army said there to have been led by Jovinus, 
that is really by Edobich. They may have been there along with 
the Franks and Alemans, or the mention of them may be owing to 
the same confusion as the mention of Jovinus. 



176 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

is recorded. And we cannot help connecting the 
two events which are brought so close together, the 
elevation of Jovinus and the Burgundian occupation. 
We may be sure that the Burgundian help which 
Jovinus received was paid for by the new Emperor 
with a formal grant of Gaulish territory to the Bur- 
gundian king and people. Jovinus and his power 
lasted but for a moment ; but the settlement of the 
Burgundians, or at least of their name, was for ever. 
Setting aside the north-eastern corner of Gaul that 
was held by the various tribes of Franks, the settle- 
ment of Gunthachar was the first Teutonic settlement 
in Gaul, as distinguished from mere harrying. It 
was the first establishment of a regular Teutonic 
kingdom, even if a kingdom dependent on the 
Empire, as distinguished from these mere planta- 
tions of prisoners or mercenaries as immediate sub- 
jects of Eome*. 

The march of Atawulf into Gaul, the elevation of 
Jovinus, the establishment of the Burgundians, were 
all made possible by the withdrawal of Constantius 
from Gaul after the fall of Constantino, whether he 
withdrew to rest in Italy or to fight in Spain. 
A new and in some points dark period now opens, 
a period in which it is not hard to follow the mere 
order of events, but in which the connexion of events 
and the working of causes baffle us at every step. 
Most hard of all is it to account for the course of 
Atawulf and his West-Goths. They now left Italy 
for Gaul. We know the fact ; we know the date ; 
at causes and motives we are left to guess. If 
* See Wietersheim, i. 



v.] West-Goths and Bur gimdians. \ii 

Atawulf designed any such territorial settlement in 
Italy as was before long carried out by his successor 
Wallia, his design at least remained a design that 
bore no fruit. But if the difficulties of the story 
are increased, a special interest is added to it by 
a certain vein of personal romance. The policy 
of princes and nations was just now largely influenced 
by the fact that the foremost men of two nations 
were rival and honourable suitors for the hand of 
the same bride. PJacidia, the daughter of Theo- 
dosius, the sister of Honorius, the captive of Alaric, 
was sought in marriage alike by the King of the 
West-Goths and by Constantius, already Count and 
conqueror and to be Consul and Emperor. It adds 
to the singularity of the case, while it does honour 
to every side of the character of the Gothic King, 
that the prize eagerly striven for by such mighty 
candidates was actually in the power of one of them. 
Placidia was still the captive of the Goths, but the 
King of the Goths was Atawulf. Her master was 
the man who spoke that memorable speech which 
traced out, which perhaps did much to rule, the 
coming history of the world. It was indeed a 
lucky chance for us which brought Orosius to hear 
the man of Narbonne, the stout soldier of the wars 
of Theodosius, tell to Jerome in his cell at Bethlehem 
the words which he had himself hearkened to in his 
own city in friendly talk with the Gothic King. 
That the words are truly the words of Atawulf we 
cannot doubt; the evidence is as good as evidence 
can be. The thoughts are far more likely to have 
sprung up freely in the mind of a Goth who wondered 

N 



178 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

at the new world around him than to have been devised 
by either a Koman monk or a Eoman senator of that 
day. We seize then our rare chance of listening to 
the inmost thoughts of one of the men who have 
indeed made history. We cannot dwell too often 
on those words so deep with meaning in which 
Atawulf declared the great change between his earlier 
and his later thoughts. He had once dreamed of 
overthrowing the Koman power, of changing Ro- 
mania into Gothia and placing Atawulf in the place 
of Caesar Augustus. The lesson of his life had 
taught him better. The rule of Rome was the rule 
of law ; by the law of Rome alone could the world 
be ruled ; he, the Gothic king, would wield the 
Gothic sword in the cause of Rome ; he would keep 
the nations under the shelter of the Roman peace 
and the obedience of the Roman law*. The man 
who could speak words like these is at once stamped 
as holding his place among the wisest and noblest 
of the world's heroes and sages. Atawulf, like Poly- 
bios, had his lot cast in one of the great turning- 
points of the world's history, and, like Polybios, he 
understood the memorable age in which he lived. 
Not all the lore, not all the experience of the friend 
of Philopoimen and of Scipio had taught him a 
clearer insight and a wider view than was revealed 
to the untutored warrior whom the Goths had heaved 
on the shield when Alaric was lost to them. For 
fourteen hundred years men have been consciously, or 

* The wouderful passage just at the end of the last book of 
Orosius' Histories has been quoted over and over again. It cannot 
be read too often. 



y.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 179 

unconsciously, carrying out Atawulfs teaching, though 
not always in the lofty spirit of the man who taught 
the lesson. If we may take the Goth, the noblest 
form of the Teutonic family, as the representative of 
the whole household, we may say that all later 
history has been the carrying out of a process by 
which Romania has become Gothia without ceasing 
to be Romania, and Gothia has become Romania 
without ceasing to be Gothia. If not Atawulf, yet 
Charles became Rome's Caesar and Augustus without 
ceasing to be the Teutonic king that he was born to 
be. The Gothic sword wielded on behalf of the 
laws of Rome has been in truth the symbol of the 
whole history of the European world since the day 
when the foresight of Atawulf first made it so. 

The Goth then is the champion of Rome ; but we 
must remember that the champion of Rome is not 
necessarily the champion of Honorius. Atawulf no 
longer thought of placing himself in the seat of 
Caesar Augustus ; but he kept to himself the power 
of choosing between rival Caesars and Augusti. And 
he did not this time choose the one whom it would 
have been most easy for him to use as a puppet for 
his own purposes. The whole story is dark ; we are 
not told why Atawulf led his army into Gaul ; but we 
know that he carried with him a deposed Emperor 
and the sister of a reigning Emperor. An honourable 
lover, he would take Placidia to wife, but he would 
take her only with her own consent and that of her 
brother. A wise statesman, he was not insensible to the 
advantage which he might gain in negotiations with 
the brother from the fact that he had the sister in his 

N 2 



180 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

power. And if he had Placidia in his power, he had 
Attains also. The Emperor whom Alaric had set 
up and put down as was convenient at each particular 
moment, was still in the Gothic camp, " for the occa- 
sional purpose," as it has been inimitably put, " of 
acting the part of a musician or a monarch *." But 
Attalus could also play a third part, that of a coun- 
sellor to his Gothic patron ; only his career in this 
third character is less intelligible than in either of the 
other two. It is said to have been by his counsel 
that Atawulf, champion of Eome, having crossed into 
Gaul, acknowledged as the representative of Eome 
the prince who had been just set up by Alan and 
Burgundian helpf . Jovinus was indeed, so far as we 
can see, the acknowledged Emperor in so much of 
Gaul as admitted any Emperor at all \. All men had 
submitted to him, save only the praefect Dardanus, 
a puzzling character, the honoured correspondent of 

* Gibbon, ch. xxxi. 

+ Our fullest narrative here comes from Olympiodoros, pp. 454 
et seqq. He now says ; 7rp6s ov ['loiSIz/oj'J Trapayevtadai "AttoXos 
AoaovXcfiov irapaivei' koI Trapayeverat ap.a tov TrXrjdovs. 

X The Chronicle known as Prosper Tiro gives a clear summary 
of events, though more than one year seems to be rolled together ; 

"Jovinus tyrannidem post Constantinum invadit. 
Industria viri strenui qui solus tyranno non cessit, Dardani, 
Ataulfus, qui post Alaricum Gothis imperitabat, a societate Jovini 
avertitur. 

Salustius quoque et Sebastianus occisi. 

Valentia nobilissima Galliarum civitas a Gothis effringitur, ad 
quam se fugiens Jovinus contulerat." 

This division of the two first clauses, given in the note in 
Eoncalli (cf. Jahn, Burgundiens, i. 311), alone makes sense. As 
commonly stopped it would mean that Dardanus helped Jovinus. 



I 



I 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. isi 

contemporary saints, of Augustine and of Jerome, 
but whom a later saint, our own Sidonius, describes 
as uniting the characteristic sins of all the tyrants. 
The inconstancy of Constantine, the recklessness of 
Jovinus, the faithlessness of Gerontius, were blame- 
worthy each by itself; in Dardanus all were found 
together *. Yet the career of Dardanus at this time, 
if harsh and cruel, specially perhaps to the chosen 
land of Sidonius, is certainly not marked by reckless- 
ness or perfidy. He is at least faithful to his master, 
and serves him well alike in diplomacy and in warfare. 
That he should do all in his power to keep Atawulf on 
the side of Honorius was a matter of course ; why 
Attains should try to enlist him for Jovinus is less 
clear at first sight. Yet it may be that he had given 
up all hope of his own restoration to power, but still, 
as was likely enough, cherished a spite against 
Honorius and was inclined to support any enemy 
of his. And we can perhaps understand that Jovinus 
might at once be afraid of such an ally as Atawulf and 
might distrust the counsellor who had advised his 
march. But when we are told that Jovinus reproached 
Attains in riddles, we feel that we have got into the 
region of riddles ourselves f. Anyhow the advances 
of Atawulf to Jovinus were not received in a friendly 

* Of Dardanus bishop Sidonius ( Ep. v. 9) says ' cum in Constantino 
inconstantiam, in 3 oymo facilitatem, in Gerontio perfidiam, singula 
in singulis, omnia in Dardano crimina simul exsecrarentur." Au- 
gustine, ep. 87, calls him "illustrius mihi in caritate Christi quam 
in hujus sseculi dignitate," and ends " nee tua indignitas parvuli." 
This talk is only theological, 

+ Olymp. ib. ; 'lo/Stvos aviaxm kin TJj 'ASaouX<j()ou Trapovaia koL fien^perai 
S' alviyfiaTcov rat irapaiveiravTi 'AttoXo) ttjv a^i^iv. 



182 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

spirit, and two other grounds of offence, one of them 
intelligible enough, presently arose between them. 

We have already heard of the valiant Goth Sarus 
and his fruitless campaign against Constantine in 
south-eastern Gaul*. This man, the chief seemingly 
of a small band or tribe of his nation, renowned even 
among his valiant people for a heroic daring sur- 
passing that of other men, had been first the follower 
and then the enemy of Stilicho ; he was the special 
enemy of Alaric, and seemingly of his house f, Ata- 
wulf, brother-in-law and successor of Alaric, carried on 
the deadly feud ; and Sarus, enemy of Atawulf, pre- 
sently became the enemy of Honorius also. Bellerid, a 
favourite officer of Sarus, had been slain by unrecorded 
but seemingly Koman hands. Honorius took no heed 
to the crime and dealt out no punishment to the 
murderer \. Sarus, in his wrath, threw off his alle- 

* See above, pp. 64, 65. 

t The relations of Sarus to Stilicho appear in Z6simos, v. 30, 

34, where he figures as koI o-wfioros pwyLtJj koI d^idxrei rav aXXa>i' (TVfi- 

fidxov TTpoexfov. His enmity to Atawulf conies out at the very end 

of ZosimoSj vi. 13 J Avafievas e^tov irpos avrbv \^dpov\ 'ArdouX^os Zk. 
Tivos Tvpoka^ovaris dWoTpioTrjTos. So Olympiodoros (p. 449) after 
recording the captivity of Placidia and the elevation of Attalus 
(a. D. 410), adds, koL on 2dpov, koL avrov TotBov ovra, Koi nXrjdovs p-ev 
oXiyov endp)(ovTa (p-xpi- ydp 8i,aKocria>v fj TpioKocriiav 6 Xaos e^eruvero) aWws 
be Tjpco'iKov Tiva koX iv pd^ais dKarayavia-rov, tovtov on 'Pcopmoi fjTaipicravTO 
d' f'xdpos 'AXapiXdi ovra, aairovhov ix^pov 'A\dpixov enoirjcravTO, The 
enmity is here carried back from Atawulf to Alaric. Jordanis in his 
Getica makes Sarus a king. 

;}i Olymp. p. 455 ; 2dpos rjv aTrooraf 'Ovapiov, on BeXXepiSoi', 6s ^v 
avTCi dopfariKos, dvaipedevros oi8e\s Xoyos ra jSaciXet Trjs dvaipefreati aide 
Tov (jiovov ylverai ttcnrpa^is. 

Jordanis (Komana, 321) makes Sarus a "EexGothorum." Sozomen 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. i83 

giance to a prince who did no justice *, and betook 
himself to the obedience of Jovinus. 

It was only with a handful of men, eighteen or twenty 
in all, that Sarus made his way into Gaul. But his 
enemy was there with a force greater beyond measure. 
Atawulf met his enemy at the head of ten thousand 
Goths, where we are not told, but at some point 
doubtless between Narbonne and the Alps. Sarus, 
true to his old character, would neither flee nor sur- 
render. He fought against these overwhelming odds 
in a way worthy of the renown of his former exploits, 
till he was taken alive and put to death f. Atawulf 
was not likely to feel more kindly towards the man 
to whom Sarus had sought to join himself, nor was 
Jovinus likely to feel more kindly towards the man 
who had deprived him of such a helper as Sarus. 

(ix. 15, see Dahn, Kbnige des Germanen, v. 57) lias been thought 
to reckon him among Roman tyrants. His words are, dSoK^Tws 
dvaipovvrai 'lo/3tafdf re Koi Md^ifios ot Trpoeiprjfievoi rvpavvoi, Koi "Edpos kol 
SKKoi TrXeTcrrot iirX tovtocs ini^ovKevdavT^s rfj 'Ovapiov /SacrtXeia. Sarus, 
by trying to join Jovinus, certainly brought himself under this last 
head ; but he seems to be distinguished from the rvpawM. 

Sozomen in an earlier passage (ix. 9) calls him Sdpos rts ^dp^apoi t6 

yivos, els aKpov to. ndkepia r](rKripevQS. 

* There is a certain likeness to Honorius in the picture of 
Stephen in the [Old English] Chronicle ; only Stephen could fight 
like Sarus himself. 

+ Olymp. 455 ; 2dpos e/neXXe rrpos 'lojSii/oi/ napayevecrdaf dXX' 'ASciouX- 
^05 TOVTO paOcav, TrpoviravTid^ei ^'^'"^"^ 8eKa a-vveirayopevos aTpaTiarrjv 
[(TTpaTKOToiv ?] €)(ovn av8pas irepl avrbv '2,dp<f oKTcuKaiheKa fj kol eiKoatv. ov 
fpya fjpat'iiid km Oavpdaei a^ia eniSei^dpevov, poXis adiCKOis i^cayprfo-av, 
Koi va-repov dvaipovai. I am not concerned in the exact force of 
o-dKKois, nor do I see why Mr. Hodgkin (i. 829) should in his first 
Edition have inferred that Sarus was tortured. 



184 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

Dardanus too was now clearly in concert with Ata- 
wulf, and the annalist who gives him an honourable 
name attributes it to him that the Goth turned aside 
from the course of the tyrant *. In another version 
a much less intelligible cause is given for the breaking 
out of open enmity between Atawulf and Jovinus. 
Jovinus associated his brother Sebastian along with 
himself in the Imperial dignity which he had as- 
sumed. On this Atawulf, highly wrathful, we are not 
told wherefore, sent an embassy to Honorius, offering 
peace and friendship, and promising to send the 
heads of Jovinus and Sebastian as pledges of his 
loyalty f. 

The promise was doubly welcome at a time when 
the throne of Honorius was beset on both sides. 
Africa had now its tyrant as well as Gaul (412). The 
most faithful of the servants of Honorius in an 
earlier day had now turned against him. Heraclian, 
who had slain Stilicho with his own hand, when to 
slay StiKcho was deemed good service, who had so 
steadily maintained the cause of legitimacv and so 
valiantly defended his own province when Home was 
threatened by Alaric and Honorius by Attains ;[ — 
this model of a faithful ruler of a Roman land had 
now taken up arms against his sovereign. His 

* See p. 180 note. 

f Olymp. 455 ; 'lo/STi/os itapa yvafjtrjv 'ASgouX^ou top tStoi* dSeX^oi' 
^e^aariavov fiaaiXea )(€i,poTovr}<Tas fts e)(6pav 'A8aov\c})a KaTea-rrj, Koi nefiTrei 
A8aovX(j)os Trpos Ovapiov TrpecrjSets, inoaxofxevos rds re t5>v Tvpdvvav 
Ke(})aXas Koi elprjVTjv e^^"'' 

X On the former career of Heraclian, see, for Ms slaughter of 
Stilicho, Zosimos, v. 37 ; for his defence of Africa, Sozomen, ix. 8 ; 
Orosius, vii. 29. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. iss 

career, like the taking of Rome itself, lies apart 
from our main subject ; we are concerned with 
Heraclian simply as illustrating the abundance of the 
crop of tyrants, perhaps as showing the brood on 
a somewhat loftier scale than Constantino, Maximus, 
or Jovinus. But we have no need to dwell on his 
invasion of Italy, his fleet which men likened to 
that of Xerxes, his battle on Italian soil, of his own 
defeat, his flight to his own Africa, the slaughter at 
Carthage of his army; they are needful only to set 
before us the nature of the time in which Atawulf and 
Constantius played their part *. These dangerous 
rivals were now drawing nearer to each other's path. 
Atawulf may well have dreamed that the heads of 
Jovinus and Sebastian should be the price of the 
daughter of Theodosius, as the foreskins of the 
Philistines had been the price of the daughter of 
Saul. He may have as yet seen in Constantius at 
worst a hostile negotiator and not a hostile lover. 
A treaty was agreed to, oaths were exchanged, and 
the promise of tyrants' heads was before long 
fulfilled. The geography of the story is wholly 
dark ; we do not know how far south Jovinus and 
Sebastian had shown themselves in person. Most 
likely they were still on their way southwards, with 

* His revolt is recorded by Prosper, 413, and referred to by 
Olympiodoros, 457, where Constantius is said to have got rich out 
of the goods of Heraclian 6s rvpawlda neXerStv dprjpTjTai. But the 
grand flourish, comes from Orosius, vii. 42 ; " Nam habuisse tunc 
iii. M. naves dicitur, quern numerum nee apud Xerxem quidem 
prseclarum ilium Persarum regem nee Alexandrum magnum vel 
quemdam alium regis fuisse historise ferunt." 



186 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

Aries as their most likely goal, where their empire 
and their Hves were cut short. The head of Se- 
bastian was soon obtained, we" are not told where or 
how, and was duly sent to Honorius *. But before 
the head of Jovinus could follow it, the Gaulish 
Valentia, the city which had lately (l43) stood a siege 
on behalf of Constans against the forces of Gerontius, 
had now to stand another on behalf of the present 
tyrant against the power of Atawulf and the West- 
Goths. We have no details of the siege, but our 
single notice seems to point to a stout resistance 
followed by a storm. *' Valentia, the noble — hardly 
the noblest — city of the Gauls, where Jovinus had 
sought for shelter, was broken down by the Goths t." 
Dardanus, there seems reason to believe, stood with 
Atawulf before Valentia ; but there is no need to 
suppose that Constantius, whose eyes seem just now to 
have turned towards African affairs \, was at this time 
in Gaul. The next point of the Gothic march was 
Narbonne, which city the Gothic army entered in 
the time of vintage. It may be that the King and 
his Roman colleague were there before them. Any- 

* Olympiodoros, p. 455 ; av [Trpeo-jSea)!/] iTroa-TpeyjrdvTmu koi opxav 
fieaiTevaavToiv, '2e^aaTiavov fxev TrefnreTai, rw ^acriXei fj KecpaXrj. 

t See above, p. 180 [citing from Prosper Tiro]. 

X One or two things might suggest that Constantius was at 
this time, if not actually in Africa, yet engaged with African 
affairs. A law of 412 (Cod. Theod. vii. 18. 17), addressed to 
Constantius as " magister militum," has wholly to do with Africa. 
Orosius (vii. 42) rejoices how " his diebus, prsecipiente Honorio et 
adjuvante Constantio, pax et unitas per universam Afiicam ecclesise 
catholicse reddita est." Lastly, it appears from Olympiodoros, p. 457, 
that Constantius received the confiscated property of Heraclian. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. isr 

how it seems to have been to Narbonne that Jovinus 
was brought as a captive. The old colony of Narbo, 
the colony of Mars, the city which gave its name to 
the whole Mediterranean land of Gaul, now becomes 
for a while the chief centre of our story. The first 
town of Gaul, it would seem, to be held by a Gothic 
king and a Gothic army, it remained the abiding 
seat of Gothic dominion north of the Pyrenees long 
after the Gothic name had passed away from the 
Loire and even from Garonne. A special creation of 
Rome, the first established seat of the Gaulish 
dominion of Rome, the commercial rival which went 
far for a while to supplant the ancient wealth and 
greatness of Messalia, Narbo Martins was still in the 
days of our kings and tyrants one of the foremost of 
Gaulish cities, but it does not now supply us with 
the same opportunities for tracing the memory of 
those times in still abiding monuments which we 
have so freely enjoyed at Arelate and Vienna, The 
balance between it and Messalia has been restored 
by physical changes. The haven of Messalia has 
been for ages growing greater and greater ; the 
haven of Narbo has passed away far more utterly 
than that of Arelate. The great mart of Roman 
trade in Gaul has now become wholly an inland 
town ; the stronghold of the Roman, the Goth, and 
the Saracen, has become an unwalled town; no 
works of Imperial days either crown its slight hill or 
watch over its narrow river ; memorials of those days 
are not lacking, but they are wholly of the kind 
which are treasured in museums, not of the kind 
which stand forth first of objects to catch the 



188 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

beholder's eye at Arelate and at Nemausus. The 
Narbo of the days of Atawulf and Placidia gathers 
round it so many interests that there is no city of 
which we should be better pleased to call up a living 
picture as it stood when the Gothic host entered its 
gates. But this is denied us. We cannot see the 
scene of the doom of Jovinus as we can see the scene 
of the doom of Constantine. For the captive of 
Valentia became the victim of Narbo ; Jovinus was 
slain by the hand of Dardanus. His head and the 
head of Sebastian went ia due form to Bavenna, 
perhaps to Carthage *. It might be well that Africa, 

* The words of Olympiodoros are ; 'lo/SIi/os Se iitto 'ASaovX^ou 

TTokiopKovnevos, iavTov endldacn, Koi TreynTTcrat eKeivos ra jSatriXei, ov 
avBein-Tjcras AdpSavos 6 enapxos dvaipei. 

This account needs to be explained and filled up from the other 
authorities. Thus it is from Prosper Tiro that we learn where 
it was that Jovinus was besieged ; " Valentia nobilissima Galliarum 
civitas a Gothis effringitur, ad quam se fugiens Jovinus contulerat." 
Then again the words that follow might make one think that 
Jovinus was sent alive to Eavenna, and that Dardanus killed him 
there. But Dardanus, the one loyal man in Gaul, was the 
inapxos of Honorius there and not at Eavenna. We may perhaps 
infer from the word TtepneTai that Atawulf designed to send Jovinus 
alive to Honorius, but that the act of Dardanus hindered him. We 
thus get the meaning of the entry of Idatius, ' Jovinus et Sebas- 
tianus oppressi ab Honorii ducibus Narbona interfecti sunt," 
followed by " Gothi Narbonam ingressi vindemise tempore." 
Whatever we say of Sebastian, Jovinus is not " oppressus " at 
Narbonne, but both are put to death at Narbonne. Nor is it 
needful to bring Constantius to Narbonne for that purpose; 
Dardanus is at any rate one " dux Honorii," and Atawulf might 
be called another. They may have been at Narbonne, though the 
whole Gothic army did not get there till a little later. 

About the sending of heads to Carthage see above, p. 127, n. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. i89 

restored to the allegiance of its lawful prince, should 
know that the arm of the lawful prince could strike 
in other provinces also. A third brother, Sallustius, 
shared the fate of Jovinus and Sebastian *. And we 
hear that the re-establishment of the authority of 
Honorius was accompanied by harsh doings in 
Auvergne, a land which, we may therefore infer, 
had been zealous for Jovinus. Many men of rank 
were put to death, among them Decimius Kusticus, 
prsefect of the Gauls under Constantino and again 
prsefect under Jovinus f. He had, it may be re- 
membered, supplanted Apollinaris, the grandfather 
of the saint and poet, who may therefore be 
conceived to have had no special love for him. Yet 
he was a chief man of Auvergne, he died among 
others of the chief men of Auvergne, by the act of 
the generals of Honorius, that is, we can hardly 
doubt, by the act of Dardanus. The man who slew 
Jovinus with his own hand was surely the man 
by whose bidding, perhaps also by whose hand, 
Decimius, Agrsetius, and the other Arvernian nobles 
met their end. In this slaughter wrought in his 
adopted country we at once see the ground for the 
excessive bitterness which Sidonius displays towards 
Dardanus. 

* Prosper Tiro (just before the entry of the fall of Valence) writes 
[as cited above], " Salustius quoque et Sebastianus occisi." Jahn, 
i. 313. 

+ Gregory of Tours (ii. 9) quotes Eenatus Profuturus Frigi- 
redus as saying " Hisdem diebus praefectus tyrannorum Decimius 
Eusticus, Agrsetius ex primicerio notariorum Jovini, multique 
nobiles apud Arvernos capti a ducibus Honorianis crudeliter 
interempti sunt." 



190 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

The authority of Honorius was thus yet again 
acknowledged throughout the whole extent of Eoman 
Graul. And this time its acknowledgement was en- 
forced by the help of the Gothic sword. But the 
extent of Roman Gaul was lessened by the same 
process. The settlement of the Burgundians west of 
the Ehine was a fact which had to be dealt with. 
They had not as yet reached any of the lands to 
which they were to give their name in times to come. 
Dijon, Geneva, Vienne, Aries, were not as yet seats 
of Burgundian power. The first Burgundian land in 
Gaul was, as the chronicler says, in the regions near 
to the Ehine. It lay among those lands on the 
Gaulish side of the river which still specially kept 
the name of Germany. It was at Mainz that the 
Burgundian king set up his Emperor ; Worms was 
the traditional home of Burgundian kingship. It 
was then the land of Mainz, Worms, Speyer, stretch- 
ing southwards along the river into the land of 
Elsass, perhaps as far as Strassburg, perhaps not, 
which Jovinus had given over to his allies as the 
price of his diadem *. How was the land thus 
occupied affected by the overthrow of the power of 
Jovinus % It is plain that the Burgundians did not 
withdraw to their own homes. Gunthachar and his 
people appear again among the nations of Gaul twenty 
years later t. And though they then appear as enemies 

* Jahn (Geschichte der Burgundionen und Burgimdiens, i. 324) 
traces out the geography very clearly ; but I do not see why they 
may not (p. 329) have reached as far as Strassburg. 

t See the entries in Prosper and elsewhere under the year 435. 
They are fully discussed by Jahn, i. 341 et seqq. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. ]9i 

of Eome, yet on the whole the Burgundians are 
found more closely connected with the Empire than 
any other of the Teutonic powers. A hundred j^ears 
and more after this time, when Emperors no longer 
reigned at Eome- or Eavenna, the Burgundian kings 
still acknowledged the supremacy of their successors 
at Constantinople, and ruled over their Eoman sub- 
jects under titles held by the grant of the Eoman 
Augustus *. Our authorities are utterly silent as to 
the whole matter, except as to the bare fact of the 
Burgundian settlement. But it seems impossible to 
avoid the conclusion that the counsellors of Honorius 
— was it the act of Atawulf or of Constantius '? — 
acknowledged a fact which it would be hard to undo, 
and that Gunthachar was commissioned as a lieutenant 
of the Empire in the lands which had been granted 
to him by Jovinust. His position would thus be 
that which was the formal position of so many bar- 
barian kings, the position of Atawulf and of Wallia, 
the position of Odowakar and the great Theodoric, 
perhaps of Chlodowig himself. Gunthachar was Bur- 
gundian king to his own Burgundians ; he was the 
partrician or proconsul of the Empire to the Eomans 
of the ceded land. We have no picture of the Bur- 

* See above all things the letters from Sigisraund to Anastasius, 
" Sigismundus rex domno imperatori/' among the epistles of Alcimus 
Avitus, 83, 84. One MS. adds emphatically; "ab Avito episcopo 
dictata est sub nomine domni Sigismundi regis ad imperatorem." 
But the king must have known what he was sending, and the 
letters are the letters of a vassel to his lord. Theodoric appears 
as " rector Italiae." 

t See Jahn, i. 315. 



192 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [v. 

gundians from the hand of Salvianus ; but it is quite 
in conformity with this position of their kings that 
their rule in Gaul seems to have been acknowledged 
as that which dealt out the least measure of hard- 
ship to the Koman inhabitants. The Burgundians 
dealt with the older people of the land, not as 
subjects, but as friends and brothers. There was not, 
at least not in the beginning, the unhappy difference 
of religion to sharpen the difference of nationality. 
The Burgundians were converted to Christianity, if 
not before their settlement in Gaul, at any rate while 
their settlement was still fresh. And they were con- 
verted to it in its Catholic form *. The Arianism of 
some of the later Burgundian kings is undoubted, 
and the belief of the kings was doubtless followed by 
at least part of the nation. Later in the century the 
strife between Arian and Catholic in the Burgundian 
kingdom becomes an important element in the politics 
of Gaul f. But Burgundian Arianism seems in no 
sort to have been, with Goths and Vandals, a national 

* The good character and catholic belief of the Burgundians 
comes from a passage in Orosius (vii. 32) earlier than his descrip- 
tion of the events with which we have been mainly concerned, 
a passage in which he mentions this mythical Eoman origin, 
and also the odd derivation of their name from hurgus. He 
adds, " Gallise hodieque testes sunt in quibus praesumpta 
possessione consistunt, quamvis providentia Dei omnes Christiani 
modo facti Catholica fide, nostrisque clericis quibus obedirent 
receptis blande mansuete innocenterque vivant, non quasi cum 
subjectis Gallis sed vere cum fratibus Christianis." 

t Tliis comes out largely in the writings both of Avitus and of 
Gregory of Tours. See above all the " Collatio Episcoporum " in 
Peiper's edition of Avitus, p. 161. 



,v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 193 

faith adopted in the first moment of conversion, but 
a rare case of the falling away of Catholics to the 
heretical teaching. At any rate heresy never was 
universal ; the kingly house itself was never without 
Catholic members *. And, somewhat later than our 
present time, we hear of Burgundians beyond the 
Ehine still abiding in heathendom till, at the moment 
of a Hunnish inroad, they too entered the Catholic 
fold f. At that date Gunthachar was still reigning 
over the colony of his people in Gaul. The mention 
of Huns reminds us that he is one of the chosen 
heroes of Burgundian story, and that his name, 
like those of so many of the princes of these ages, 
found its way into the great Teutonic epic of the 
Nibelungs \. 

* On the religion of the Burgundians see Jahn, i. 122, 385. 
Chrotechildis, whom the French have made into Clotilde, is of 
course the great case of later Burgundian orthodoxy. 

+ This comes from the passage of S6krates, vii. 30, discussed 
by Jahn, i. 337. The Burgundians come in; edvos ia-Ti ^ap^apov, 

irepav tov 'Ptjvov exoov rfjv oiKrjaiv' Bovpyov^laves KoKovvraL. It has 

been questioned whether this really belongs to Burgundians east 
of the Ehine so late as 430, and whether it is not a confusion 
with the earlier conversion of the Burgundians in Gaul. In strict 
geography the words irepav tov 'Ptjvov written at Constantinople 
ought to mean the left bank. But this would imply more accurate 
study of the map than Sokrates had a chance of. His knowledge 
would come from Western informants, who by "trans Ehenum" 
would mean the right bank. The Burgundians are converted Kara 

vovv Xafi^avovTes on 'Pcofiaiatv 6 Qeos ttrxvpais toIs (po^ovfievois avrbv 

^or)6ei. Here we seem to have almost got back to the Hebrew 
notion of a national God; but one of the greatest facts in the 
history of the world lurks beneath the phrase. 
X See Jahn, i. 341 et al. . 





194 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

Jovinus had been raised to his short day of Empire 
by the joint help of Burgundians and Alans, of that 
branch of the Alans who, under Goar, had entered the 
Koman service when the mass of the nation went on 
to their harrying in Gaul and their settlement in 
Spain. But while we can in some sort trace the 
history of Guntachar and his Burgundians from this 
time onwards, we seem to lose sight of Goar and his 
Alans. We get a singular glimpse somewhat later of 
an Alan king and an Alan army in an alliance with the 
Goths of which they are weary* (415). We have to 
guess at the time and circumstances under which this 
union was formed ; but it would be nothing wonderful 
if, after Jovinus had yielded to Atawulf, the Alans 
were either constrained or found it prudent to' join 
the side of the conquerors. There seems to be no 
later mention of Goar or his people ; they must have 
been merged among some of the other settlers in 
Gaul, or else have joined their brethren in Spain, who 
were before long to be merged among the Suevians. 
No lasting settlement of mere Asiatic barbarians was 
to be made in the Cisleithan lands of Europe. 

But other Teutonic people besides the Burgundians 
were stirring at this time on the eastern frontiers. If 
the Burgundians had shown themselves at Mainz and 
Worms, the Franks were at work somewhat further 
to the north. By that name we must just now 
understand, not the Franks within the Ehine who 
were Eoman allies and had so lately done their duty 
in that character. The Franks, of whom we now get 

* This comes from the Eucharisticon of Paulinus of Pella, of 
whom more anon. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 195 

a glimpse are the still untamed Franks who lived 
beyond the boundary stream and who had not 3-et 
obtained any settlement within the Empire. The 
head of Gaul, Augusta of the Treveri, which could 
hardly have recovered from its sack by Vandals, 
Alans, or Suevians, was now again taken, sacked, 
and burned by the Franks *. We have no distinct 
record of the several takings of Trier, four of which, 
it must be remembered, came within the memory 
of Salvianus. It may indeed have been after this 
sack [and not the earlier one] that the people of Trier 
drew on themselves the stern preacher's indignant 
rebuke for thinking, as soon as the enemy was gone, 
of the games of the circus before all things f. But the 
language of Salvian himself shows that even this last 
blow did not separate the capital of Valentinian and 
Maximus from the Empire. Whatever Trier suffered 
now, the damage must have been so far repaired that 
it lived on as a city and as a Eoman city. 

But the Franks, whether defending the Empire or 

* This again comes from Gregory's quotations of Kenatus 
Profuturus Frigeridus. After tlie passage already quoted in note, 
p. 104, comes " Treverorum civitas a Francis direpta incensaque 
est secunda irruptione." 

t Salvian, vi. 13, says "expugnata est quater urbs Gallorum 
opulentissima." But the most striking passage comes at vi. 15, 
and refers to the third taking of Trier; "ter continuatis ever- 
sionibus summa urbe Gallorum, cum omuis civitas combusta esset, 
malis et post excidia crescentibus." Then "pro summo deletes 
urbis remedio circenses ab imperatoribus postulabant." It is 
possible that Frigeridus and Salvian may reckon the sieges differ- 
ently and that they may refer to the same taking. If so, the 
Emperors must be Honorius and, for form's sake, Tbeodosius. 

O 2 



196 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

sacking its cities, do not as yet form the great centre 
of Gaulish history. At this time a higher interest 
gathers round the Burgundian, and a higher still 
round the Goth. At this moment, if Gunthachar was 
in form a Eoman oflS.cer, Atawulf was so yet more 
distinctly. He was so all the more because he was 
not, like Gunthachar, the ruler of any acknowledged 
territorial possessions. But his friendship with his 
formal overlord was not unbroken. The restoration 
of Placidia was wished for, most hkely by her brother, 
certainly by her Illyrian lover ; while his Gothic rival 
had assuredly no mind to give her up. He was the 
less likely to do so as long as her detention could be 
diplomatically justified, as long as the plighted price 
of her release, corn for the feeding of the landless 
Goths, and that in a year of hunger, still remained 
unpaid*. In the very year of the fall of Jovinus (413), 
Goths and Eomans are again in arms against one 
another. 

It can hardly be doubted that Atawulf now aimed 
at a great Gothic settlement in Southern Gaul, 
much like that which was afterwards carried out by 
his successor Wallia. We find him attacking several 
of the great cities of that region, and as entering into 
possession of some of them. We know not in what 

'^ The policy of Atawulf and Constantius is well marked out 
by Olympiodoros. We read now (p. 456), 'ASdovX^os iXKaKihiav 

d'lrrjTelTO Kara crnovSrjv fidXia-Ta KcDvaravTiov, bs varepov avrfj koI els 
ydfiovs iX^v^ev. aXka tuiv ivpos Abdov\(f)ov VTrocrx^cecnv nf) Tre paivofiepav, 
Kal fidkicrra r^j cnroTropmaf, oiire Taiirrjv ajreStSow, Koi els pdx^v ep-eXera ra 

T^s elpfjvrjs 8ia\vfa-6ai. So in a fragment of PMlostorgius, xii. 4, 
it can only be Constantius who appears as iXnidas rpecfxov, as avrbs 
KaTanoikfpr]<Tas ^AbdovX(f)ov rr^v HXaKidiav vvp(^evcraiTO. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 197 

character he waged this warfare, of which we hear 
only in a most casual way. It would be hardly 
according to his principles to show himself as the 
open enemy of the Empire, and we may be tempted 
to suspect that now, as somewhat later, he followed 
the policy of setting up a puppet Emperor. It falls 
in with this view that we incidentally learn that the 
Goths were admitted into Bourdeaux in perfect peace ; 
Toulouse, future home of Gothic kings, may have 
been taken in arms ; it is certain that Atawulf did 
occupy both those cities, and this seems tlie most 
likely point in the story for either a warlike or 
a peaceful entry into them *. Of Narbonne we have 
already seen him in possession, and there his posses- 
sion could hardly have been disturbed, as we shall see 
him there again on a memorable day. But when he 
pressed beyond the Rhone, and planned a surprise of 
Marseilles, his conquests came to an end. From the 
Phokaian city he was beaten back with danger to his 
life. The blow was dealt by the valour, and seemingly 
by the very hand, of that renowned Count Boniface, 
the friend of saints and once well nigh a saint him- 

* The peaceful occupation of Bourdeaux comes from a single 
line of the Eucharisticon of Paulinus, when describing events a 
little later ; 

"Nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui in pace recepti." 
The occupation of Toulouse comes from Eutilius JSTematianus, i. 
495, where he says of his friend Victorinus, 

"Errantem Tuscis considere compulit agris 
Et colore externos capta Tolosa lares." 

At least Dahn (K. d. G. v. 59) refers the lines to an occupation 
at this time. 



198 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

self, but who afterwards fell and rose through the 
successive stages of sinner, traitor, and penitent*. 
The negotiations however go on. Constantius is ever 
demanding Placidia ; Atawulf is ever raising fresh pleas 
to justify his refusal to restore herf. The next year 
(414) Constantius, clothed in the glories of the consul- 
ship and enabled by the confiscated hoards of Heraclian 
to make his consulship a splendid one %, might seem 
to be a more dangerous enemy than ever. Yet it is 
now that, through the influence of Candidianus, 
seemingly the same who figures later in ecclesiastical 
story §, the formal consent was won without which 
Atawulf, in the loftiness of his Gothic honour, would 
take no advantage of the presence of his beloved in 
his own camp. It hardly takes away from the merit 
of Atawulf, and it is not likely to have been taken into 
account in these endless negotiations, that the Gothic 
king had already a barbarian wife or mistress, of 
Sarmatian race, by whom he was the father of several 

Olympiodoros, ib. \ ^A8dovX<f)os anaiTOV^ievos liXaKidlav, avTan^Tei 
Tou opiaBevra aiTov. uTTopap 8' ovrav rmv vTtO(T)(Ofieva>v tls to bovvai, 
ovhev Se rfTTOV SixoXoyovvTcov, el Xn/Soiev TiXaKi8iav napao'^eiv, Koi 6 
^dp^apos ra opoia vTroKpivero. Then follows liow the barbarian 
TTpos MaaadKiav, noKiP ovrm Ka\ovfievT]v, irapayevofievos, SoXw TavTrjv Xa^tiv 
^TTiCfV. evda jrkrjyels, Boi>t](f)aTiov tov yepvaioTarov jSaXdvros, fidikis top 
OavaTOP Bia(f)vyuip, els Tag olKelas vnfx^PW^ (TKrivas, ttjp ttoXiv iv evBvpia 
\i,nav Koi 61 enaipap Koi ev<prip.ias Troiovp.evr)p 'BoprjcbaTiop, 

f lb. p. 457; 'A8dov\(f>os TOV ydp,op peXerap IlXaKiHias, KaporaPTiov 
ravTTjp anaiToiiPTos, ^apvTepas TrpovTfipep alTTjaeis, ipa 8ia t^p divoTv\iav 
evXoyop 86^rj ttjp KaTdaxeaip avTfjs irenoirjKepac. 

I It is when recording the consulship of Constantius that Olym- 
piodoros (p. 457) mentions the grant of Heraclian's property to him 
(see p. 185) and gives the personal description of him (see p. 112). 

§ See Diet, of Christ. Biog. s. n., and Hodgkin, i. 831, n. 



v.] PVest-Goths and Burgundtans. 199 

children *. She had to depart to make room for the 
august bride, and that was all. For now, at the be- 
ginning of the year (414), came that famous bride-ale 
of Narbonne, which it was fondly hoped would be far 
other than bale to many men, Gothic and Komanf. 
At the wedding of Atawulf the Gothic king took his 
place alongside of the daughter and sister of Em- 
perors, while a deposed Emperor led the choir in the 
wedding-song. The tale has been often told, and in 
modern Narbonne we shall seek in vain for any sign 
of the spot, for any trace of the house of Ingenuus 
which beheld the celebration of the marriage rites. 
Those rites were gone through in due order according 
to Eoman usage ; the bridegroom conformed to the 
national uses of the bride ; the stranger conformed 
to the national uses of the land in which he was 
sojourning %. Goth and Eoman rejoiced with equal 

* The iraidla, a eK rris Trporepas yavaiKos eTvy)(avev 'AdaovX<f)at yeyevvr]- 

fj-iva appears in Olympiod. p. 459. Their mother seems to be 
noticed in a strange fragment of Philostoi-gius (xii. 4) which shows 
that an Arian ecclesiastical historian could talk quite as mystically 

as any Catholic ; pap^apiKov yap yivovs tov ^avpofidrcov ;;^p);/xartXfti' 
avT^u Koi crvva(^6r]uai t6t€ rat oarpaKivco yevei tov eK ai^rjpov rffv yeveaiv 
ekKOvra' ov tovto yap piovov, dWa Ka\ ■qv'iKa izoKiv ^AddovX(f>os yap-iKets 
SpiKlais rfi UXaKibla avvelneTo, t^v yap oar paKivqv ^vaiv . . . 

t See the song of the bride-ale of Norwich, if it was Norwich, 
in the Chronicles, 1075. 

X Olympiodoros (457) and after him Mr. Hodgkin (i. 832) 
describe the wedding with much lively detail. I am most con- 
cerned with the first words, 'AdaovXcfxa aTrovBfj Kal vnodTjKT} Kavdidiavov 
6 irpos HXaKLdlav avvTeXeiTat ydpos. The epithalamium is sung 'AttuXov 
irpSiTov (Ittovtos, and we read, avvTeXelrai 6 ydpos, nai^ovrav koi 
Xaipovrav 6p.ov tS>v re ^ap^dpav Koi rS>v iv avrols 'Papaiojv. All the 

ceremonies were Roman, and Atawulf wore a Roman dress. Idatius 



200" Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [v. 

joy at the wedding which was in truth the symbolic 
wedding of Gothia and Eomania, the setting forth in 
a visible shape of the lofty schemes which were 
working in the mind of Atawulf. The Gothic King, 
soldier a,nd champion of Eome, was now the brother- 
in-law of Kome's elder Emperor. But in those days 
the soldier of Eome, without forsaking the service of 
Eome, might shift his obedience almost at pleasure 
from one Eoman prince to another. The prince who 
at the bride-ale had his turn as musician had again 
before the year was out his turn as monarch. So 
soon were the Imperial and royal allies, the Eoman 
and Gothic brothers-in-law, again at variance. Con- 
stantius had won back his influence with Honorius, 
and he was likely to be more wroth than ever with 
the rival who was in actual possession of the prize 
that had been so long sought for by both. So, 
wherever the power of the Goth reached, the Eome 
from whose cause he never fell away was to be repre- 

sees in the marriage tlie fulfilment of the prophecy of Daniel, 
" qui ait filiam regis Austri sociandam regi Aquilonis." Jordanis 
(Getica, 31) gives quite an unexpected place to the marriage, 
which he strangely fits in before the Gothic march into Gaul. In 
fact his story is utterly confused; but he, or Cassiodorus before 
him, quite understood the significance of the event. " Cujus 
[Honorii] germanam Placidiam Theodosii imperatoris ex altera 
uxore filiam ab urbe captivam abduxit [Atauulfus], quam tamen ob 
generis nobilitatem formseque pulcritudinem et integritatem casti- 
tatis attendens, inForo Juli^milise civitate suo matrimonio legitime 
copulavit, ut gentes hac societate comperta quasi adunatam Gothis 
rem publicam efficacius terrerentur, Honorioque Augusto quamvis 
opibus exhausto tamen jam quasi cognatum grato animo derelin- 
quens, Gallias tendit." 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 201 

sented by another chief. Attalus Augustus appears 
once more in Gaul under the patronage of Atawulf, as 
he had appeared for one moment in Italy under the 
patronage of Alaric * . Wherever the brother-in-law of 
Honorius had practical dominion in Gaul, there not 
Honorius but Attalus was Emperor. Of his acts in 
that character we know at least one. He bestowed 
a great oflSce on a man who was not eager for it, 
a Eoman of high position and descent, whose singular 
autobiography throws a good deal of light on these 
times and reveals to us some particular events of 
which we might otherwise never have heard. 

This is Paulinus, distinguished from many other 
bearers of his name with some of whom he has 
sometimes been confounded, as Paulinus of Pella. 
He notes with some pride that he was a native of 
the same city as Alexander, though in his day it had 
become needful to point out the royal seat of the 
Macedonian kings as being near their own crea- 
tion of Thessalonicaf. But he was not a man of 
Macedon, but of Gaul. His family was of Bourdeaux 
or perhaps of Bazas, and he was the grandson of 
Decimus Magnus Ausonius, poet and consul, some 
have thought through his son Hesperius, others 
through his daughter married to Thalassius ]. His 

* We here lose Olympiodoros for a season, but the new elevation 
of Attalus is recorded by Prosper, 414 ; " Attalus Gothorum consilio 
et prsesidio tyrannidem resumit in Galliis." 
t Paulinus, 24 ; 

"Editus ut Pellius, inter cunabula quondam 
Eegis Alexandri prope mcenia Thessalonices." 
{ The point is fully argued in the Preface to the new edition of 



202 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [y. 

birth east of Hadria was owing to the official employ- 
ments of his father, who at the time of his birth, in the 
year in which the Goths crossed the Danube (376), 
held the vice-prsefectship of Macedonia*. An ap- 
pointment to the African proconsulship carried father 
and son to Carthage ; thence the child came by way 
of Eome to the city of his forefathers, to see his 
grandfather in the glories of a consulship enjoyed 
wholly on the banks of the Garonne f (379)- The 
record of his life, his studies, his pleasures, his affairs, 
the youthful errors which he confesses^, throws light, 
like every such record, on the life of the age in which 
he lived. The piece of detail most worthy of notice 
is that where, in his somewhat lumbering Latin 
hexameters, he tells us that he preferred the Greek 
authors to the Latin, seemingly — was it the result 

Symmachus, as before by Leipziger in his Dissertation (Breslau, 
1858), p. 3. 

* Paulinus, 26 ; 

" Patre gerente vices illustris prsefecturse." 

+ lb. 43-49 ; 

"Majorum in patriam tectisque advectus avitis, 
Burdigalam veni .... 

Tunc et avus primum illic fit mihi cognitus, anni 
Ejusdem consul, nostra trieteride prima." 

As the consulship of Ausonius was in 376, this fixes the dates for 
the whole life of PauKnus ; for he is very careful in always men- 
tioning his own age, though less so in giving the names of other 
people. 

X Paulinus, 156 et seqq. The distinction which he draws on 
this head, and the pointed contrast he makes between " culpa " and 
" crimen," are worth noting. He was (166) 

" Contentus domus illecebris famulantibus uti." 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 203 

of mere birth in Macedonian air % — that in his youth 
the Greek tongue came more familiar to him than 
the Latin, though in his later days he came to set 
more store by the tongue which was more native to 
a man of Bourdeaux, even if casually born at Pella *, 
From his thirty-first year (407), the year when enemies 
poured into the bowels of the Eoman realm f, his 
tale of his own life becomes for a while an important 
contemporary authority for the history of the time. 
It is from him that we learn the relations between 
the Goths and the Alans and the Gothic occupation 

* Paulinus, 72 ; 

"... Exacto primo post tempore lustri 
Dogmata Socratis et bellica plasmata Homeri, 
EiToresque legens cognoscere cogor Ulixis. 
Protimis ad libros etiam transire Maronis, 
Vix bene comperto jubeor sermone Latino, 
Colloquio Graiorum adsuefactis famulorum, 
Quos mibi jam longos ludorum vinxerat usus ; 
Unde labor puero, fateor, fuit hie mihi major, 
Eloquium librorum ignotce ajpjprehendere linguce.'' 

This is as curious as Orderic's seeming ignorance of French when 
he was taken from Shrewsbury to Saint Evroul. The child, born 
at Pella, is taken before he is three years old to Carthage, Eome, 
Bourdeaux ; yet Latin is " ignota lingua," 

+ lb. 232. The date of the great invasion of Gaul is accurately 
marked ; 

" Sed transacta sevi post trina decennia nostri, 
Successit duplicis non felix cura laboris ; 
Publica quippe simul clade in commune dolenda, 
Hostibus infusis Eomani in viscera regni." 

His father dies, and he has a dispute with his brother about his 
mother's dowry. 



204 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

of Bourdeaux *. Of that citj Atawulf was still in 
possession when he again gave the diadem to Attains. 
Paulinus was one of its chief citizens; he won the 
favour of the Gothic king, and we shall presently see 
that he was on intimate terms with an Alan king, 
doubtless Goar. He obtained the special favour of 
having no Gothic guest quartered on his house f. 
But the presence of the strangers who had entered 
the city in peace was no great burthen ; the Goth 
knew the duties of a ruler, and the peace of King 
Atawulf may well have been better kept than the 
peace of Honorius Augustus. The virtual ruler 
now proclaimed the empire of the prince under 
whom, while Alaric lived, he had once held a high 
military command, and under whose renewed sove- 
reignty he doubtless rose higher still %. Our poet 
carefully points out that Attains had in truth 
no power, no revenue, no soldiers of his own ; he 
was a Eoman prince wholly by the grace of the 
Goth. Not out of love for the helpless tyrant, but 
out of mixed fear and regard for his Gothic master, 
Paulinus acknowledged the empire of Attains, and 

* See above, p. 197. 
t Paulinus, 282 ; 

" Otia nota domus specialia commoda plura, 
Omnibus heu nimium blandis magnisque referta 
Delitiis, cunctisque bonis in tempore duro, 
Hospite tunc et quae Gothico jam sola careret." 

X "When Alaric was " magister utriusque militise " {arpaTT]y6s 
eKarepas Bwdpfcas) under Attalus, Atawulf was " comes domesticorum 
equitum " {fjyefiuv rav inneav So/xeo-TtKwi/ KaXovfiepwv), Sozomen, ix. 8. 
Atawulf now doubtless held the higher place. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundmns. 205 

received from him the post of count of tlie private 
largesses. The post was not a pleasing one, as 
Attains had no revenues from which to be bountiful. 
Yet he submitted ; it was the will of the Goth ; the 
rule of the Goth was a fact in Aquitaine, and many 
Eomans had learned how to flourish under it *. 

The Augustus of Bourdeaux and Narbonne had 
thus a strong helper of another people ; but the 
Augustus of Eavenna had found a strong helper 
among his own people. Constantius was now the 
counsellor of Honorius ; and Constantius could act 
as well as counsel. The man who had lost Placidia 

* Paulinus, 292 ; 
" Addita majoris nova est quoque causa labor is, 
Ut me conquirens solatia vana tyrannus 
Attalus absentem casso onoraret honoris 
Nomine, privatse comitivam largitionis 
Dans mihi, quam sciret nullo consistere censu ; 
Jamque suo ipse etiam dedisset fidem regno, 
Solis quippe Gothis fretus male jam sibi notis 
Quos ad praesidium vitse prsesentis habere 
Non etiam imperii poterat per se nihil ipse, 
Aut opibus propriis aut ullo milite nixus. 
Unde ego non partes infirmi omnino tyranni, 
Sed Gothicam fateor pacem me esse secutnm, 
Quse tunc ipsorum consensu optata Gothorum, 
Paulo post aliis cessit mercede redempta, 
Nee penitenda manet cum jam in republica nostra 
Cernamus plures Gothico florere favore." 
It is to be hoped that Paulinus' Greek verses, if he made any, 
were better than his Latin. I do not profess to understand every 
word, and the last lines seem to refer to a later time when the 
Goths were in fall possession of Aquitaine. But the general sense 
must be much as I have given it in the text, and in any case we see 
a " Pax Gothica " supplanting the " Pax Eomana." 



206 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

was sent, with the new rank of Patrician, against the 
man who had won her. Constantius entered Gaul ; 
if Boniface, with only pubHc motives for action, had 
once proved too strong for Atawulf, much more might 
Constantius, with his own quarrel to stir him to yet 
further zea]. So it proved. Eoman mihtary science, 
when combined, as it was in the case of the new 
Patrician, with a stout heart and a strong arm and 
a private grudge to boot, proved too skilful for the 
simpler valour of the Goth. Boniface had saved 
Marseilles from Atawulf ; Constantius now succeeded 
in driving him out of all Gaul, and that, if we rightly 
understand the somewhat dark language of our 
authorities, without any actual fighting. The work 
seems to have been done by skilful combinations 
which cut off the Gothic host from the coast and all 
supplies. While Constantius kept his own head- 
quarters at Aries, he constrained Atawulf to depart 
from Narbonne and from the whole land *. Again 

* At this point Olympiodoros fails us. Prosper only speaks 
casually of " Grothi ad Hispanias migrantes." Idatius speaks of 
" Ataulfus a patricio Constantio pulsatus, ut relicta ISTarbona His- 
panias peteret." It is from Orosius that we get the nearest 
approach to an account of the campaign ; " Constantius comes 
apud Arelatum Gallise urbem subsistens magna rerum gerundarum 
industria Gothos a Narbona expulit, atque abire in Hispaniam 
cogit, interdicto praecipue et intercluso omni conatu navium et 
peregrinorum usu commerciorum Gothos." 

Jordanis (Getica, 31) has quite another story. Franks, Bur- 
gun dians, Vandals, Alans, all flee out of Gaul for fear of the Goths, 
and take refuge in Spain. Ata-wulf follows them, and at the end of 
three years is master of Gaul and Spain both. " Tali ergo casu 
Galliae Atauulfo patema venienti. Confirmato ergo Gothus regno 
in Galliis Spanorum casu coepit dolere, eosque deliberans a Vanda- 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. 207 

we get some details of great interest and singularity, 
from the poet of the Eucharisticon. The Goths had 
entered Bourdeaux in peace, and they had kept 
peace in it ; but when Atawulf was driven to leave 
Gaul, and his bidding came that his army was to 
leave the city, they did not leave it in peace. 
Attains was still acknowledged by Atawulf as 
Emperor, and, according to this theory, whatever 
Constantius might be doing at Aries, the people of 
Bourdeaux were harmless subjects of a prince in 
alliance with the Gothic King, and were therefore 
entitled to the full protection of the Gothic peace. 
But at such a moment rage and disappointment 
trampled on all such subtleties as this. The Goths 
were giving way before Koman enemies ; they had 
a Koman city in their power ; and, though they had 
entered it as friends and had dwelled in it as friends, 
yet, when they had to leave it against their wills, 
they dealt with it as if it had been taken by storm. 
Whether at the bidding of Atawulf or not, Bourdeaux 
was plundered and burned — burned that is doubtless 
in the way that cities were burned, and from which 
they so speedily recovered *. The count of the 

lorum cursibus eripere, suas opes Barcilona cum certis fidelibus 
derelictas plebeque imbelli, interiores Spanias introivit, ubi ssepe 
cum Vandalis decertans, tertio anno postquam Gallias Spaniasque 
domuisset, occubuit." Here must surely be a confusion between 
Atawulf and Wallia. 
* Paulinus, 308 ; 

" Tristia qugeque tamen perpessis antea multis 
Pars ego magna fui quorum privatus et ipse, 
Cunctis quippe bonis propriis patriseque superstes, 
Namque profecturi regis prsecepto Ataulfi, 



208 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

largesses fared no better than others, or rather 
worse. His privilege of having no Goth quartered 
in his house now turned to his loss. Not a few 
others found the horrors of the sack much lessened 
by the personal kindness of their Gothic guests ; 
Paulinus had no such friend to help him''\ His rank 
as the minister of an allied prince went for nothing ; 
his goods were plundered ; his house was burned ; 
he, his mother, and his household, escaped with the 
loss of all. They were fain to be thankful that they 
were spared in life and limb, and that the chaste 
Goths, true to their picture as drawn by Salvian, 
did no wrong to the honour of any of the female 
members of the company f. 

Nostra ex urbe Gothi fuerant qui in pace recepti, 
Non aliter nobis quam belli jure subactis 
Aspera quseque omni urbe irrogavere cremata." 

The " preefecturus rex Ataulfus" clearly points to the departure 
of Atawulf into Spain. In so confused a writer we may hope that 
the " prseceptus " referred only to the departure and not to the 
sack of Bourdeaux. 

* Paulinus, 286 (after the lines quoted, p. 204, note) ; 
" Quod post eventu cessit non sero sinistro : 
Nullo ut quippe domum speciali jure tuente 
Cederet in preedam populo permissa abeunti; 
Nam quosdam scimus summa humanitate Gothorum 
Hospitibus studuisse suis prodesse tuendis." 

t lb. 315 ; 

" In quam me inventum comitem tum principis ejus, 
Imperio cujus sociatos non sibi norant, 
Nudavere bonis simul omnibus, et genitricem 
Juxta meam mecum communi sorte subactos, 
Uno hoc se nobis credentes parcere captis. 
Quod nos immunes poena paterentur abire, 



v.] IVest-Goths and Burgundians. 209 

All that Paulinus tells us about Bourdeaux is 
a distinct addition to our knowledge. But for him 
we should never have found out that the Gothic 
occupation under Atawulf stretched so far to the west. 
What follows is yet more remarkable, as it gives us 
our last glimpse on Gaulish soil of the vanishing 
race of the Alans, and of their relations towards the 
West-Goths. We are admitted to the personal 
acquaintance of an Alan king, who cannot fail to be 
that Goar of whom we have twice heard. He who 
had helped to set up Jovtnus was now the fellow- 
soldier of the patron and officer of Attains. Paulinus 
and his company, fleeing from Bourdeaux, made 
their way to Bazas, a city of Novempopulania, lying 
to the south-west of Bourdeaux, a little way ofl" the 
left bank of the Garonne. This too was for Paulinus 
an ancestral city; if his descent from Ausonius was 
through his daughter, it was most likely the home 
of the family of Thalassius *. How he and his party 
were able to enter is not clear; for he found a strange 
state of things within and without the town. Without 
it was besieged by a mixed host of Goths and Alans, 

Cunctorumque tamen comitum simul et famulorum, 
Eventum fuerant nostrum qusecumque secutse 
Illseso penitus, nullo adtemptante, pudore." 

He is glad that his married daughter had left the country 
already. 
* lb. 328 ; 

"Nee postrema tamen tolerati meta laboris 
Ista fuit nostri quam diximus ; illico namque 
Exacto laribus patriis tectisque crematis 
Obsidio hostilis vicina excepit in urbe 
Vasatis patria majorum et ipsa meorum." 
P 



210 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

minded clearly in their unwilling retreat to do all 
mischief that might be to the land which they were 
leaving. This is intelligible enough. Greater curio- 
sity is awakened by Paulinus' picture of the internal 
state of Bazas. The slaves were in revolt, and a few 
young men of free birth — Catilina has his likeness in 
many times and places — joined with them in a con- 
spiracy for the general slaughter of the nobles*. 
Are we, if the Bagaudse were the mere Jacquerie 
that they are commonly painted, to suppose civic as 
well as rural Bagaudsel But in any case it is not 
wonderful if the confusions that must have followed 
on successive barbaric invasions had stirred society 
to its lowest depths. Still servile conspiracies are 
seldom successful, and Bazas was not, any more than 
Armoricat, to be as Yolsinii or as Hayti. The 
revolt was put down w^ith the deaths of a few only 
of the guilty, and Paulinus is specially thankful to 
the Providence which allowed him the double satis- 
faction of forgiveness and of vengeance by causing 
the man who specially tried to murder him to be 
punished, but by the hand of another J. But the 

* Paulinus, 333 ; 

" Et gravior multo, circumfusa hostilitate, 

Factio servilis paucorum mixta furori 

Insano juvenum . . . licet ingenuorum, 

Armata in csedem specialem nobilitatis." 
+ See above, pp. 64, 168, 169. 
X Paulinus, 337 ; 

" Quae tu, juste Deus, insonti a sanguine avertens, 

Illico paucorum sedasti morte reorum, 

Instantemque mihi specialem percussorem 

Me ignorante alio jussisti ultore perire.'' 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 211 

danger within the walls suggested to Paulinus 
a hazardous scheme of dealing with the besiegers 
who lay without them. He remembered his old 
friendship with the Alan king, and he knew that it 
was not of his own will that he and his people were 
serving with the Goths against the Eomans. He 
contrived to make his way without hindrance to the 
camp of Goar, and asked that by his help he and his 
family might be allowed to leave the town. To the 
amazement of Paulinus, the Alan answered that he 
could not help him, that he could not even allow 
him to go back into Bazas, unless he were himself 
admitted into the town. He knew that, if the pro- 
posed escape were allowed, the wrath of the Goths 
would be heavy against Paulinus, while he, Goar, 
was anxious for an opportunity of escaping from 
Gothic supremacy *. The discourse between Paulinus 

* lb. 343 ; 

" Sed mihi tarn subiti concusso sorte pericli 
Quo me intra urbem percelli posse videi'em, 
Subrepsit -fateor nimium trepido novus error ; 
Consilio, ut me prsesidio regis dudum mihi carl 
Cujus nos populus longa obsidione premebat, 
Urbe ab obsessa sperarem abscedere posse, 
Agmine carorum magno comitante meorum, 
Hac tamen hos nostros spe sollicitante paratus, 
Quod scirem, imperio gentis cogente Gothorum, 
Invitum regem populis incumbere nostris. 
Explorandi igitur studio digressus ab urbe, 
Ad regem intrepidus nullo obsistante petendi. 
Laetior ante tamen prima quam affarer amicum, 
Alloquio gratumque magis fore quam mihi rebar. 
Perscrutato autem ut potui interius viri voto 
P 2 



212 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

and the Alan king is a little less clearly explained 
than we could have wished, but we may gather that 
Goar expressed his wish to change from the Gothic 
to the Eoman side — or, if we like so to put it, from 
the side of Attains to that of Honorius — and that 
he went within the walls of Bazas in company with 
Paul in us, in order to make a treaty to that effect 
with the chief men of the city. These were doubt- 
less the members of the curia, the forefathers of 
those senatorial families who appear so often in the 
Gaulish history of the next century; in the days of 
Honorius political life seemed to be falling back into 
its original elements, and the senate of Bazas, like 
the senate of Home, might be called to act for itself 
in matters of peace and war*. The agreement, 
whatever its exact terms, was made and carried 

Prsesidium se posse mihi prsestare negavit 
Extra urbem posito, nee tutus jam sibi prodens 
Ut visum remeare aliter pateretur ad urbem, 
Ipse nisi mecum mox susciperetur in urbe, 
Gnarus quippe Gotbos rursum mihi dira minari, 
Seque ab ipsorum cupiens absolvere jure." 

* Paulinus, 364 ; 

" Obstupui fateor pavefactus conditione 
Proposita et nimio indicti terrore pericli, 
Sed miserante Deo afflictis qui semper ubique 
Imploratus adest, paulo post mente resumpta, 
Ipse licet trepidus et adbuc nutantis amici 
Consilium audacter studui pro me ipse fovere, 
Ardua dissuadens quse scirem omnino neganda, 
Praestanda et prius quam mox tentanda perurgens, 
Quse non sero probans vir prudens ipse secutus, 
Illico consultis per se primatibus urbis, ^ 

Rem cceptam accelerans una sub nocte peregit; 



"^'•3 West-Goths and Burgundians. 213 

out. The wife and son of the Alan king were 
given to the Eomans as hostages for his good faith. 
He and his people from the enemies became the 
friends of the Romans of Bazas, and they undertook 
to guard the city which they had the day before been 
besieging. But it would seem that they guarded 
it only from without. An unarmed crowd of both 
sexes, Paulinus himself, now restored to his friends, 
being doubtless among them, thronged the walls of 
Bazas to see the unexpected deliverers by whom 
they were set free from fear of the Gothic enemy. 
Close under the walls was the Alan host which had 
streamed together from all quarters, the women 
thronging along with their armed husbands. Bazas 
was closely fenced in by barbarian arms and barbarian 
waggons, but they were there for the protection and 
not for the assault of the town. When the Goths saw 
their army lessened by so important a part of it as 
their late Alan allies, they deemed that all hope of 
taking Bazas had passed from them. They marched 
away, by what exact course it did not concern 
Paulinus to tell us ; but they must have made their 
way to join the army which had been driven to leave 
Narbonne. When the Gothic enemy was gone, the 
Alan deliverer did not long tarry; he too marched 
away, we know not whither ; it is the last that we 
hear of Goar, the last that we hear of his peof)le on 
Gaulish soil. Bazas was, for the moment at least, 
free from the presence alike of barbarian friends and 

Auxiliante Deo cujus jam munus habebat, 
Quo nobis populoque suo succurrere posset." 
Does the last line but one imply that Goar was a Christian ? 



214 Western Europe m the Fifth Century. \y. 

of barbarian enemies *. We should be glad of other 
such like tales of Gaulish towns during these memor- 
able years. The Goth had now to withdraw, not 
only from Bourdeaux and Bazas, but from all Gaul ; 

* Paulinus, 377; 

" Concurrit pariter cunctis ab sedibus omnis 
Turba Alanaram armatis sociata maritis; 
Prima uxor regis Eomanis traditur obses, 
Adjuncto pariter regis caro quoque nato. 
Eeddor et ipse meis pactse inter fcedera pacis, 
Communi tanquam Gotbico salvatus ab boste. 
Yallanturque urbis pomoeria milite Alano, 
Acceptaque dataque fide certaret parato, 
Pro nobis nuper quos ipse obsederat bostis, 
Mira urbis faeies cujus magna undique muros 
Turba indiscreti sexus circumdat inermis. 
Subjecta exterius; muris hserentia nostris 
Agmina barbarica plaustris vallantur et armis, 
Qui se truncatam parte agminis baud mediocris, 
Circumjecta videns populorum turba Gothorum, 
Illico diffidens tuto se posse morari 
Hoste intestine subito in sua viscera verso, 
Nil tentare ausa ulterius properanter abire, 
Sponte sua legit cujus non sero secuti 
Exemplum et nostri quos diximus auxiliares 
Discessam fidem pacis servare parati 
Eomanis quoquo ipsos sors oblata tulisset." 

I can bardly tbink with Fauriel (i. 134) tbat the line (381) 
" Eeddor et ipse meis pactse inter fcedera pacis " 
means tbat Paulinus was given up as a bostage to the Alans. But 
Fauriel is the only writer who has used the witness of Paulinus at 
any length. Dahn has some references. I doubt whether Gibbon 
had actually seen the poem. 

The story of Paulinus goes on for forty years longer. It 
contains much interesting personal matter, and we shall have to 
turn to it once more for an illustration of general history. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 215 

Atawulf had to give up all immediate hopes of 
dominion north of the Pyrenees. He and his Goths 
passed into Spain. He took with him his puppet 
Emperor and his Koman queen, the sister of the 
lawful Augustus of whom he was now again the 
enemy. 

This was a strange moment in the strangely 
chequered career of Placidia, As far as Komania 
was concerned, she had sunk into nothingness. She 
was a banished woman among a strange folk, a folk 
at war with her house, and if not formally at war 
with her country, yet kept from being so only 
because they had set up the enemy of her house 
as the nominal ruler of her country. As far as 
Gothia was concerned, she was the wife of a loving 
husband, the queen of a mighty king, the royal lady 
of what still seemed to be a loyal people. An exile 
from Kome and Kavenna, she had come to share 
a kingly throne, if only the throne of a barbarian, 
in the elder home of the Theodosian house. And 
presently it seemed as if the line of Theodosius and 
the line of the Baits were to be alike continued in 
a common representative of Gothia and Eomania. 
At Barcelona, the new seat of her husband's power, 
Placidia bore a son (415) who might look to be one day 
heaved on the shield as a Gothic king, and to wear 
the diadem of his childless uncle in the palace of 
Bavenna and on the capitol of Eome. The babe 
received the name of his Koman grandfather, and the 
birth of the youngest Theodosius seemed to open 
a way towards a reconciliation between the families 
and the nations of his parents. Both Atawulf and 



216 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

Placidia sought for peace and friendship with 
Honorins *. The claims of Attains were again for- 
gotten ; whether he was actually sent to Italy as 
a peace-offering is not quite clear ; anyhow he was 
cast aside by the Goths ; he was taken at sea 
by officers of Honorius, delivered up to Constantius, 
and kept for the judgement of the lawful Emperor. 
Between Honorius and the first Csesar the likeness 
is not great ; yet the fate of Attains has something 
in common with the fate of Vercingetorix. Each 
kept his captive to adorn his triumph ; for two years 
after this time (417) Honorius again entered Eome with 
the ancient ceremonies of a conqueror. Attains was, 
like Perseus, Jugurtha, or Tetricus, led before the 
triumphal chariot, but as he escaped the fate of 
Vercingetorix, he escaped also the harder fate of 
Jugurtha. Gains Julius could slay, but he did not 
mutilate, nor did he, like Gains Marius, condemn 
the victim to a lingering death. Honorius could 

* Olympiodoros, p. 258 ; *A6aovX0or, rexOevTos airS (K Trjs U\a- 
Ktoias TraiSoy, <o eVe^ero KXrjaiv Qeobocnov, TrXeov fjcrjrd^eTO ttjv Trpos 

'Paiiaiovs (f)iKiav. He does not mention Attains at this point. 

Orosius, who records the marriage of Atawnlf and Placidia, but 
not the birth of Theodosius, brings out Atawulf 's desire for peace 
very strongly, and attributes it largely to Placidia's influence ; " Is, 
ut supra auditum atque ultimo exitu ejus probatuni est, satis 
studiosse sectator pacis, militare fideliter Honorio imperatori ac 
pro defendenda Romana republica impendere vires Gothorum 
prseoptavit." And afterwards — the great passage of all comes 
between — " Ob hoc abstinere a hello, ob hoc inhiare paci, nitebatur, 
prsecipue Placidise uxoris suae, feminse sane ingenio acerrimse et 
religionis satis probatse, ad omnia bonarum ordinationum opera 
persuasu et consilio temperatus." 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 217 

slay also on occasion ; but he could also mutilate. 
He might have a special temptation to choose that 
punishment in the case of Attains. There had been 
a day when Attains had threatened Honorius with 
mutilation and banishment to an island *. He was 
himself to feel in himself what he had thought of 
for another. His head was not sent to keep company 
with the heads of so many tyrants at Carthage or 
elsewhere. Among the ceremonies of the triumph 
he was led before the tribunal of the conqueror, and 
then, with the loss only of the thumb and one other 
finger of his right hand, a disqualification alike for 
the lyre and for the sceptre, he was sent to end his 
days on one of the fiery isles of ^olus f. 

* See next page. 

t We read in Prosper, 415, "Attains a GotMs ad Hispanias 
migrantibus neglectus et praesidio carens, capitur et Constantio 
patricio vivus offertur." And again in 417, "Honorius trium- 
phans Komam ingreditur, prseeunte currum ejus Attalo, quern 
Liparse vivere exsulem jussit." Orosius, without any distinct 
date, as the fate of Attains is brought in rhetorically along 
with the ends of the other tyrants — "Attains tamque inane 
imperii simulacrum cum Gothis usque ad Hispanias portatus est, 
unde discedens navi, incerta moliens, in mari captus et ad Con- 
stantium comitem deductus, deinde imperatori Honorio exhibitus 
truncata manu vitse relictus est." This is followed by Marcellinus, 
412, who puts the date back through coupling Jovinus and Attalus. 
He says, " Attalus in mari captus atque Honorio exhibitus, truncata 
manu vitse relictus est." Nor can I, with Clinton, agree to put 
the surrender of Attalus in 416 along with the restoration of 
Placidia, This comes from the passage in Philostorgius, xii. 4; 
€»c TovTov [on the death of Atawulf] to ftdp^apovTrpos 'Ovwpiov (ririvhfTai, 
Koi TTfV oiKeiav d8f\(pr]v Koi top "AttoXov tw jSaeriXei irapevTidevrai avToi. 

But he is clearly writing without regard to minute chronology, 



218 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [V. 

The offering of Attalus, if an offering he was, 
might appease the offended dignity of Honorius ; it 
did not appease the bitter jealousy of Constantius. 
No peace would he have with the husband of 
Placidia, the father of Placidia's child *. A strange 
doom presently transferred those titles to himself, 
and led the sister of Honorius to a higher throne 
than that of the West-Groths. But her path to her 
highest elevation was through deeper sorrow than 
ever. To become Augusta, wife and mother of 
Augusti, she had to go through heavy bereavement 
and harsher captivity. Before the year was out, 

as he adds, \ioipav nva Ti]! Ta\aTS>v ;^a)paff els yecopylav anoKKTjpcocrdiievoi, 
This can mean only the Aquitanian cession, for which Clinton's 
date is 418. Prospers order of events is on the other hand clear 
and careful, and it is hardly set aside by the Paschal Chronicle 

(i. 573, ed. Bonr.) which places ra emviKia to. Kara "AttoKov tov 
Tvpavvov in the consulship of Theodosius (VII) and Palladius, that 
is 416. Olympiodoros (452) mentions the fate of Attains casually, 
when recording his first elevation ; /xera xpovov nva fiacri\evei. eira 
Kadaipelrai^ Koi fjura ravra varepop enl 'Vd^evvav Trapayeyovas, Kal tovs 
TTJs Sextos ;)(eip6? 8aKTv\ovs dKpaTr]puicr6els i^op'ia TrapajrefineTai. The 

mutilation however was clearly done, not at Eavenna but at 
Kome among the ceremonies of the triumph. Philostorgius (xii.) 

gives some curious details ; vnep rod ^ruiaros dva^as \^Ovaipioi\, 6 TTju 
■KpQ>Ti]U aiirm ^adfiiba top "AttoKop Bia^aiveip {meriOei .... Sf^ta? ;)(ei/>6f 
dneTefie roiis 8vo 8aKTv\ovs, wf 6 nep dvTixf'ip, o 8e Xtp^ai/os f-^ei rrjv KXrj(nv. 
Koi els AiTrdpap rfjv ptJctov tovtop (j)vyabevf(., fMTjbfvos aXXov KaKov Trpbs 
TTflpap KaraaTTjcras, dWa Koi ras els top jSi'ov ;(p6i'as 7rapa(Tx6fiepos. It 

must be remembered that Attalus had once threatened Honorius 
with banishment to an island, and that either he or Jovius — 
more likely Jovius — had added the threat of mutilation. Cf. 
Olymp. p. 452, with Zosimos, vi. 9. 

* Olymp. p. 458 ', KavaravTiov 8e koi tS)V nepl KcoparravTiop dvri- 
TrpoTTOPTap, e/iefei' anpuKTOs ^ tovtov koi UXaKibias 6pp.r}. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 219 

Constantius might rejoice that the son and the 
husband of his beloved were taken away out of 
his path, and that without any crime on his part. 
The infant Theodosius, born to be the hope of two 
nations and the tie between two periods of the 
world's history, died to the deep grief of both his 
parents, and was buried in a casket of silver in 
a church outside the walls of Barcelona *. The death 
of the father (415) soon followed on the death of the 
child. Atawulf had foes of his own nation. Some told 
how a certain Eoforwulf could not endure the king's 
jeers at his small stature. Others told how in times 
past a king of some branch of the Gothic folk had been 
slain at Atawulf's bidding, how his faithful follower, 
Dubius by name, cherished vengeance for his slain 
lord, and one day gave Atawulf a deadly wound, as 
the King was going the round of his horses f. Atawulf 

* lb. 459; Tek€VTr}(TavTOS tov iraibos, irevdos fieya iroiovaiv eV avrm Ka\ 
BdnTovaiv iv XdpvaKi Karadevres apyvpa irpo t^s "RapKeKKcDvos ev Tivi 
evKTTjpia. This last phrase of bedehouse, is perhaps a sign of the 
probable paganism of 01ympiod6ros. Anyhow it is an early case 
of burial inside a church. The American use of " casket " seems 
exactly to translate Xdpva^. 

t This is the story in Jordanis, Getica, 31; " Occubuit gladio 
ilia perforata Euerwulfi, de cujus solitus erat ridere statura." 

Olympiodoros says ; dvaipeirai ^A8dov\(j)os, els eTriTi]pr]criv t5>v olKeiav 
tTTJTtov, ms f'i6c(TTo avTa, bcaTpi^ccv iv tw Ittttww. dvaipa. be avrbv eis 
tS)v olKeicov VotBcop, AovjSioy Tovvofia, e)(6pav iraXaiau Kaipo(f)vS.aKT](ras' 
TrdXai yap rfv 6 tovtov dfcrnoTr}!, p.oipas Fot^jk^s pfj^, vno 'A8aov\(jiov 
dvTjprjpevos' e^ ov Koi tov Aov^iov Xa/Swi/ 'ABdov\(j)os aKeiaxraTo' 6 8e 
T«5 TrpuTO) heairoTT] dpvvtov tov Sfirtpov fiie^prjaaTO. I agree With 
Mr. Hodgkin, i. 415, that the former lord cannot be Saras. But 
may not the Aov^ios of Olympiodoros and the Euerwulfus — clearly 
Eoforwulf, a grand wild beast name — of Jordanis be the same ? 



220 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

died, but not till he had given his dying charge 
to a brother. A childless widow among a strange 
folk, there was no longer a place for Placidia in the 
Gothic camp ; Atawulf could bring himself to bid that 
she should be given back to her own people, even 
at the risk of handing her over to the arms of his 
rival. And, to the last faithful to his mission, the 
Gothic King, the beginner of the world of modern 
Europe, died with a worthy bidding on his lips. 
The last words of Atawulf were the counsel that his 
Goths should ever dwell, if so it might be, in peace 
and friendship with the Eomans *. 

A king of a moment followed Atawulf, the successor 
whom Atawulf would have least wished to follow him. 
Deep in the next century men in other Teutonic 
kingdoms remarked on the little regard which the 
Goths showed to the claims of birth in disposing of 
their crown. They had an evil practice, so it seemed 

Aov/3ios does not sound like a Gothic name — unless one could fancy 
something like Duhha — and it might be a Latin nickname. 

Philostorgius (xii. 2) brings in the death of Atawulf with a singular 
phrase J ov tvoKv to fieaov koi ttoXXo. dpafiarovpyfja-as i^ opyrjs 'A8aov\(f)os 
vTTo Tivos Ta>v olneicov dnoa-cfidTTeTat. Orosius laments his being cut off 
while he was so earnestly striving for peace ; " Cumque eidem paci 
petendse atque offerendse studiosissime insisteret, apud Barchilonem 
Hispanise urbem dolo suorum, ut fertur, occisus est." Idatius, 
who places the death of Atawulf in 416, has a singular phrase; 
"per quemdam Gothum apud Barcelonam inter familiares fabulas 
jugulatur." Does that mean a friendly chat in the stable 1 

* Olympiodoros, 459 ; TfXfvrau 8e 'A8dov\(f>os irpoairaTTe tw Wia 
d8e\(f)a uTTodovvai ttjv ItXaKidlav koi, eiri tvvaivTO, rfju 'Pwfjialtov (f)i\iav 

iavTois irepinoirjaaa-dai. This brother does not seem to be spoken 
of elsewhere. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundtans. 221 

in Frankish Gaul, of killing their kings, and setting 
up whom they would in their place *. Nobility of 
birth, the lofty stock of the Balti andthe Amali, was 
indeed respected among both Eastern and Western 
Goths; but in the succession to the Gothic crowns we 
see neither the Frankish rule which deemed that every 
son of a king had a right to be a king nor yet the 
English rule by which the nation chose for itself 
among the kingly house. Atawulf had left children and 
a brother ; but some strange passing influence gave 
for one week the cynehelm of the West-Goths to Sigeric 
the brother of the slain Sarus. A party favourable to 
his house and hostile to the house of Atawulf already 
had the upper hand for the moment t. We are told 
that Sigeric, no less than Atawulf, sought for peace 
with Eome ; but it is more certain that he treated 
the widowed sister of the Emperor with the deepest 
insult, Placidia, mourning for her child, mourning for 
her husband, was forced to walk undistinguished 

* Greg. Tur. iii. 30 ; " Sumpserant enim Gothi banc detestabilera 
consuetudiiiem, ut si quis eis de regibus non placuisset, gladio eum 
adpeterent, et qui libuisset animo, bunc sibi statuerent regem." 

t " Segericus rex a Gothis creatur," says Orosius ; the name 
is one of a familiar type. In Greek hands it changes a little ; 

as 01ympid6ros says ; biaboxos 6 tov '2dpov n8eX(f)os ^lyyepixos, arnovhfj 
fiaXkov Koi BvvaaTeia ij dxoXovdia koL vofia yiverai. This is again 

a curious use of the word bwaa-Teia. The fate of the children is 
emphatically marked by Olympiodoros ; to re TratS/a a sk ttjs 

erepas yvvaiKOS (Tvyxuvev 'ASaovX^o) yeyet>T]p.epa, avelXe, ^la rS>v tov 
iiruTKOTTov ^lyrjadpov koXttcov aTroamdcras. Then follows the treatment 
of Placidia — fts v^piv ' A8aov\(f)ov. See Hodgkin, i. 835. 

Jordania also (Getica, 31) records the election and death of 
Sigeric. In the chronicles his short dominion passes without notice. 
Wallia would seem to have immediately succeeded Atawulf. 



222 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

among a crowd of captives who were driven before 
the horse of Sigeric. Her step-children, the brood 
of the Sarmatian woman, were torn from the arms 
of the Bishop Sigesar, a Goth and an Arian, and 
slaughtered without mercy. But on the seventh 
day the murderer was himself slain, and a worthier 
choice was now made. Wallia, the wise and valiant, 
was heaved on the shield. We hear nothing of his 
descent or of his earlier deeds ; but what he did in 
a short reign showed that he had well learned the 
lesson of Atawulf. The great hindrance to peace, the 
personal rivalry between Atawulf and Constantius, 
was now at an end. We know nothing of the 
domestic relations of Wallia at the time, but he at 
least did not give Placidia a third suitor. She was 
given back to her brother, Constantius being the 
officer whose duty it was to receive her, and the 
Goths received the long-promised payment of corn 
in exchange *. The memory of her noble Goth 

* Olympiodoros says of Sigeric, enTO. ^^epas ap^as, avaipfirai, 
fjyefioav 8e rav rordoiv OvaXlas KaOiaTarai. In a later extract (p. 462) 

he records the restoration of Placidia with some details which 
are not found elsewhere, especially the payment of the wheat ; 

EvTrXowrtOf 6 fiayKTrpiavos wpos OvaXiav, os tS>v Tordav expTjudri^e 
(])vXap^os, aTTOOTeXAerat, e(f) a anovbds re deadai elprjviKas nal aTrdXa^e'iu 
TTjV nXoKiblav, 6 8e erot'/Ltcos 8e)^eTai, Koi airovTakevTOs avra (titov iv 
iwpidaiv i^rjKovTa, drroXveTai IlXaKtBia Trapatodelaa 'EvTrXovTlco irpbs 
Oviapiov TOP oiKeiov avTtjs dSeX^df. 

Orosius records the death of Sigeric and the election of Wallia, 
and adds, somewhat later ; " Pacem optimam cum Honorio im- 
peratore datis tutissimis obsidibus pepigit. Placidiam imperatoris 
sororem honorifice apud se honesteque habitam fratri reddidit." 

Philostorgius (xii. 4) records the payment of corn ; but he is 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 223 

lived in her heart, but she at last became the un- 
willing bride of the man who had so long waited for 
her. Constantius, count, patrician, consul, held for 
seven months the rank of Augustus, and even in that 
short space learned that the diadem did not bring 
happiness *. Placidia Augusta, mother of Honoria, 
saw her daughter, if not wedded, yet wooed, by 
a barbarian of another stamp, from her own Atawulf. 
Attila claimed her as his ; but at least the blood of 
Emperors did not actually mingle with the blood 
of the Hun. Mother of the last Valentinian, the 
last Eoman prince who could claim even female 

in rather a hurry about Aquitaine, as he is rather too late with 
Attalus; Ik tovtov [on the death of Atawulf] top ^dp^apov irpos 'Ovapiov 
anevdeTai ^(ovardvTLOs seemingly] Koi ttjv olKeiav dSeX^jji/, Koi top 
AttoKov T(5 /SatrtXei jrapaTidevTai avTo), cn/rrjirecrl re be^iovdevTts, Koi 
polpav Tiva rrjs tS>v TaXaToyu ^(Oipas els yeapyiav a.TTOKKrjpaxrap.evoi, 

Prosper's entry is a little mysterious; "Athaulfus a quodam 
suorum vulneratus interiit, regnumque ejus Wallia, jperemptis qui 
idem cwpere intelligehantur, invasit." The words in Italics are 
an odd way of pointing at Sigeric. Under the next year, 416, 
his entry is, "Placidiam Theodosii imperatoris filiam, quam Eomse 
Gothi ceperant, quamque Ataulfus conjugem habuerat, Wallia 
pacem Honorii expetens reddit, ejusque nuptias Constantius 
promeretur." 

In this last entry he also is in too great a hurry. 

* Idatius records the marriage ; but he places it in the same 
year with her restoration and with the death of Atawulf. 
Olympiodoros (p. 464) fixes it to the first day of the eleventh 
consulship of Honorius and second of Constantius, that is to 
January 1, 417. He brings out the unwillingness of Placidia 

very strongly ; TroXXa nev avrrj dvavevova-a TrapeaKevaae Koi t&v avrrjs 
opyt^eadat BepanovTOiv. reXos Se eV t^ t^s vnareias fjl^epo. dno j^eipos 
ravTijv 6 ^aaiKeiis koi d8f\<p6s Ovcopios aKovaav \a^a>v, eyx^ipiC^i Trapadovs 
KcivaTavTia), 



224 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [v. 

descent from the stock of Theodosius, she knew 
exile and she knew rule. Her memory still lives 
among the columns and mosaics of Eavenna ; it is 
but a few centuries since she was there in her bodily 
presence *. 

The reign of Wallia forms the last stage of our 
story (415-419). He was the direct founder of the 
Gothic power in Gaul ; he was the indirect founder of 
the more famous, but hardly in truth more memorable, 
Gothic power in Spain. At him and his works and 
the works of those who followed him we must at 
least look so far as to see the West-Gothic king- 
dom definitely change from a wandering people to 
an established territorial power. That power has, 
beyond all others, a threefold position. It was the 
Goth who was called, in the forefront of all the 
nations of Western Europe, to bear the assault of 
the Saracen, to bridge over the time when the strife 
was between the older and the newer life of Europe, 
between the elder power of Eome and the younger 
power of the Turk, and the time when both had to 
strive against wholly alien foes from Africa and Asia. 
Into those days it is not our present business to 
follow him ; but we must see this power established in 
the lands in which we have as yet seen him only as 
a wanderer. Of the three lands whose revolutions 
during some most eventful years we have under- 
taken to trace, Britain has passed away into a world 

* On the tomb of Placidia and her embalmed body, which sat 
there in Imperial state till late in the sixteenth century, see the 
various accounts of Eavenna and Hodgkin, i. 887, 888. 



v.] West-Goths and Burgundians. 225 

of fable to come forth again into the world of history 
under a guise wholly unlike that of either of her 
fellows. In Spain and Gaul we have still to see 
some shadow of a return to settled order brought 
about by the sword of the West-Goth. 



VI. 

[WALLIA AND THE SETTLEMENT OF AQUITAINE.] 

Wallia, King of the West-Goths, is one of the 
men to whom we may be inclined to think that later 
ages have hardly done justice. The dispensing of his- 
toric fame is always liable to be somewhat accidental ; 
it was specially so in the times with which we are 
now dealing. Our actual narratives are so painfully 
meagre and piecemeal ; and it is so purely a matter 
of chance whether any other record of this or that 
prince or other leading man happens to be preserved. 
We can hardly fancy that the glory of the great 
Theodoric could ever have been wholly obscured or 
brought down to the level of an ordinary barbarian 
king. Yet from direct narrative we should know 
hardly anything of his Italian reign; we should 
know far more — that is, if any human effort could 
remember the story — of the endless intrigues in 
which he and his namesake figured while the East- 
Goth still abode on the eastern side of the Hadriatic. 
It is to the good luck that has preserved to us the 
whole mass of the state-papers of one of the most 
memorable of reigns that we owe that, though there 
are few kings whose reigns it would be harder to 
record in detail in the shape of annals, there are few 
whom we can more fully call up in every detail of 



Wallia and the Settlement of Aqmtame. 227 

his internal government and his foreign policy. 
A lesser, but not contemptible bearer of his name, 
stands before ns as a living man and not a mere 
name in a chronicle, because our prelate and poet 
at Auvergne has by good luck drawn us the full- 
length portrait of a neighbour whom he dreaded but 
whom he could not help respecting*. Of Atawulf 
himself, of the clear sight with which he spanned the 
ages, of the keen grasp with which he learned the 
place in the world's history that was meant for him, 
we should have had but the faintest glimmerings, if 
a citizen of Narbonne had not told the tale to a saint 
at Bethlehem in the hearing of a pilgrim from Tarra- 
gona. On Wallia Orosius has bestowed only a few 
lines of narrative prose, while Sidonius has bestowed 
on him the chance gift of a casual mention, taking to 
be sure the shape of a few sounding hexameters, 
enough perhaps for a barbarian king, in the long 
panegyric with which he hails a short-lived Em- 
peror f. We can judge of him only by his acts, as they 
are recorded in the meagre materials out of which 
we have to patch his story. In them he stands forth 
as the worthy successor of Atawulf, as the man who 
carried on the work of Atawulf, as the Goth wielding 
his sword in the cause of Kome, as the prince who 
found a settled dwelling-place for his people, who 
established Gothia as a known part of the earth's 
surface, and that without wiping out Eomania to 
make room for it. Wallia waged many wars ; but 
he waged them all, according to the teaching of 

* See the picture of the second Theodoric in Sidonius, i. 2. 
t Sidonius, Carm. ii. 363, &c. 

Q2 



228 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

Atawulf, as the soldier of the Empire. It is said by 
one who was writing while Wallia was acting that 
Wallia was chosen to the West- Gothic kingship 
in order that he might be the enemy of the Empire, 
but that he really showed himself its faithful 
friend *. We see here either a change of purpose 
in Wallia himself, like the change of purpose which 
we have seen in Atawulf, or else a difference of 
objects between Wallia and his people, in which the 
warlike instincts of the nation submitted in the 
end to the direction given to them by the King. 
It seems certain that the first enterprise which 
Wallia designed was a direct attack on the lands 
of the Empire, on a province which had been 
spared invasion for many years. Wallia proposed to 
forestall with his Goths the work which Gaiseric 
afterwards carried out with his Vandals, to pass the 
bounds of Europe and to found a Teutonic dominion 
in Africa which could have been founded only at the 
expense of Eome. It was the second time during 
these wars and settlements that the Goths, after so 
long a history as a nation ever moving by land, ven- 
tured, as they had once done so long before, to risk 
their fate on the waters of the Mediterranean. Alaric, 
flushed with the spoils of Eome, had designed to 
brave Skylla and Charybdis and to make Sicily, 
perhaps a Gothic dominion, perhaps only a field for 

* So at least says Orosius, vii. 43 ; " Segericus rex a Gothis 
creatus cum itidem judicio Dei ad pacem pronus esset, nihilominus 
a suis interfectus est. Deinde Vallia successit in regnum, ad hoc 
electus a Gothis ut pacem infringeret, ad hoc ordinatus a Deo ut 
pacem confirmaret." 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 229 

Gothic plunder. The dangers of the strait had been 
too much for him, and the Gothic fleet was dashed 
in pieces *. So now Wallia, as the firstfruits of 
his reign, gathered a fleet to bear his warriors to 
their African conquest ; but his enterprise shared 
the fate of that of his predecessor ; another Gothic 
fleet was dashed in pieces by a mighty storm in 
the narrow sea between the pillars of H^rakl^s f. 
Then Wallia thought of the ill luck of Alaric ; he 
learned that destiny did not design him and his 
people for warfare with Kome or for warfare on 
the sea. He would keep himself to the element 
on which his people had done great things and 
would there act as the ally and soldier of Eome. 
He gladly listened to the advances of the Eoman 
envoy Euplutius, and the peace was concluded be- 
tween Wallia and the patrician Constantius \. He is 

* See the strange story of the image in 01ympiod6ros, 453. 

t Orosius, vii. 43; " Territus maxime judicio Dei, quia cum magna 
superiore abhinc anno Gothorum manus instructa armis navigiisque 
transireinAfricammolii'etur,in duodecim millibus passuumGaditani 
freti tempestate correpta, miserabili exitu perierat, memor etiam 
illius acceptge sub Alarico cladis, cum in Siciliam Gothi transire 
conati, in conspectu suorum miserabiliter arrepti et demersi sunt." 

X lb.; "Pacem optimam cum Honorio imperatore datis lectissimis 
obsidibus pepigit." So Idatius, who places it in the twenty-second 
year of Honorius, that is 416 ; " Cui [Ataulfo] succedens Wallia in 
regno cum patricio Constantio pace mox facta." So Prosper speaks 
of "Wallia pacem Honorii expetens" in the consulship of Theodosius 
VII. and Palladius ; that is also 416. This seems to be the right 
year for the peace and the restoration of Placidia. Only Prosper 
has put her second marriage too early, and Idatius has put the 
death of Atawulf too late. 

The name of the negotiator comes from Olympiodoros (462); 



230 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

named as the actor ; and to him the peace was 
specially interesting, as it was the peace by which 
Placidia was at last restored to her countryman, and 
the way opened for her marriage with himself. In 
the wider view of things this peace — 'pax optima as 
it is called by the devout Orosius — was marked by 
the engagement made by the Groths to win back 
Spain to the obedience of the Empire from the 
dominion of the Vandals, Suevians, and Alans, by 
whom so large a part of it was still possessed. If 
the Yandals really had made a treaty with the 
Empire, it went for nothing when so promising an 
alliance offered itself, and one which so much 
better suited the personal objects of Constantius *. 
In observance of his new engagements, Wallia, 
during his short reign, waged many wars in Spain, 
but always to the at least nominal advantage of 
the Empire. Yet it is hard to believe, though our 
authority is the absolutely contemporary Orosius, 
who recorded the exploits of Wallia in his own 
land as the best news of the day, that either Wallia 
or the barbarian king generally sent messages to 
the Emperor, setting forth the state of things with 

"EvirXovTios 6 fiayiaTpiavos rrpos Ova\iav, os rav TotBohv e)(prjfidTi^e cbv- 
Xapxos, aTTOoreXXfTat, €0' o) (nrov8ds re decrdai elpriviKas Koi dnoXa^elv rfiv 

HXaKiBiav, k. t. X. Wallia is (}>v\apxos again ia 465 ; he was riyepLav 
in 659. 

* On this peace see Dahn, i. 145. Procopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3) 
makes an agreement between Honorius and Godegisl {rore ^vii^aiva. 

FoSiyto-KXa) 'Ovapios ecf) a 8fj ovk eVt Xu/i?; rrjs ■)(i)pas iBpvaovraiY But 
Godegisl had been killed long before; see above, p. 28. Orosius 
also seems to refer to something of the kind in words which will 
be quoted in the next note. 



VI.] Walha and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 231 

a plainness of speech unusual among the princes of 
any age. Let Honorius, he is made to say, abide at 
peace, and take hostages from all ; in the war between 
him and the other barbarians, whichever side won, 
whichever side was overthrown, the loss was the 
loss of barbarians, the gain in any case would 
belong to the Emperor and the Eepublic*. With 
or without this clear understanding of what he was 
doing, Wallia set forth to bring back that part of 
Spain which was in the hands of the newly settled 
barbarian powers, that is to say, all the peninsula 
save the Eoman corner in the north-east and the 
few points which still held out elsewhere. Of these 
powers two were broken in pieces, that one most 
utterly which seemed most thoroughly out of place. 
Non-Aryan invaders were not to rule abidingly in 
Western Europe till they came in quite another 
shape from that of the half-Teutonized Turanian. 

* Idatius (Eoncalli, vol. i. p. 19) is emphatic on this head; ""Wallia 
rex Gothorum Eomani nominis causa intra Hispanias csedes magnas 
efficit barbarorum." Orosius, vii. 43, adds some strange details ; 
"EomansB securitati periculum suum obtulit [Wallia] ut adversus 
cseteras gentes quae per Hispanias consedissent sibi pugnaret, et Ro- 
mania vinceret; quamvis HalanorumcoeteriVanddlorum Suevorumque 
reges eodem nobiscum placito despecti [al. depecti] forent, mandantes 
imperatoriHonorio; Tu cum omnibus pacem habe omniumqueobsides 
accipe : nos nobiscum confligimus ; nobis perimus, tibi vincimus : 
immortali vero qusestu erit reipublicse tuse si utrique pereamus. 
Quis hsec crederet, nisi res doceret ? " How strictly contemporaiy 
Orosius was comes out strongly in the words that follow ; " Ita- 
que nunc quotidie apud Hispanias geri bella gentium et agi 
strages ex alterutro barbarorum crebris certisque nuntiis disci- 
mus, prsecipue Valliam Gothorum regem insistere patrandse paci 
ferunt." 



232 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

At that moment the Alans were the greatest power 
of central Spain, cut off indeed from the straits and 
from the Pyrenees, but stretching from the Ocean 
to the inner sea, from the haven of Odysseus to the 
haven of Asdrubal. Their dominion has on the map 
almost the air of a kingdom of Castile with a 
kingdom of Portugal added. To the north-west the 
Suevians under Hermenrich and the AsdingianYandals 
under Guntheric between them held the Gallician 
horn of Europe ; south of Anas the Silingian Yandals 
held the land of Bsetica, the land to which some 
have thought that they gave their name. The moun- 
tainous frontier of Gaul, and the land on either side 
of Ebro, the land of Tarraco and Csesaraugusta, was 
still held, either by the Boman or by those whom 
neither Koman nor Saracen could fully overcome. 
To enlarge this Imperial remnant at the cost of all 
the settlers of the last few years, the sword of Wallia 
was now drawn. The Alans, under their king Atax, 
were so utterly overthrown that they ceased to 
be a people and a kingdom ; the remnant that 
escaped from the Goth commended themselves to 
the Yandal King Guntheric, and lost themselves 
in the greater mass of his people. Here the report 
of the contemporary annalist is borne out by later 
history. The Alans now vanish from Spanish 
history. It is more startling when the same author 
says that the Silingian Vandals in Bsetica were 
all cut off by King Wallia. For that is just 
the corner of Spain in which the Vandal power 
lived on till its voluntary departure beyond the 
straits, and where it showed not a little vigour 



VI.] WalUa and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 233 

a few years after this time. A contemporary 
Spaniard must be supposed to know the geography 
of his own country; and, if we allow for some- 
what of exaggeration, if we grant the survival of 
a remnant which was capable of again becoming a 
great people by the immigration of a kindred folk, 
the statement becomes intelligible. We have an 
entry a little earlier by which it seems that a Vandal 
king, Frithbald by name, was taken and sent as 
a trophy to Honorius. But as he was taken by 
craft without dealing of handstrokes, we may be 
tempted to guess that those who took him were 
Eomans rather than Goths *. Anyhow, as long as 

* Our accounts of these wars are very meagre. The clearest 
account is that of Idatius. After the entry in note, p. 229, placed 
in 416, come the words " Alanis et Wandalis Silingis in Lusitania 
et Bsetica sedentibus adversatur [Wallia]." Then comes under the 
same year, only seemingly with some doubt as to the manuscript 
authority ; 

"Fredbalum regem gentis Wandalorum sine uUo certamine in- 
geniose captum ad imperatorem Honorium destinat." 

(The nominative seems to be Constantius, whose marriage comes 
just before. Only that was certainly in the next year, 417. 
Honorio XI. et Constantio II. Coss.) 

Then comes the entry quoted in note, p. 231, under the year 417 
(Honorius XXIY.). Then in the same year; 

" Wandali Silingi in Baetica per Walliam regem omnes extincti. 

" Alani qui "Wandalis et Suevis potentabantur, adeo csesi sunt a 
Gothis, ut, exstincto Addace rege ipsorum, pauci qui superfuerant, 
abolito regni nomine, Gunderici regis Wandalorum qui in Gallsecia 
resederat, se patrocinio subjugarent." 

One finds less help than one looked for in Pallmann, Geschichte 
der Vblkerwanderung, i. 259, and Dahn, Kbnige der Germanen, 
V. 56. Wietersheim (Band iv. 178-180) brings out more points in 
a few words. 



234 Western Europe tn the Fifth Century, [vi. 

Wallia remained in Spain, the Gothic sword, wielded, 
according to the bidding of Atawulf, in the cause 
of Eome, went on and conquered, and the other 
barbarian settlers in the land were cut short before 
the joint advance of Goth and Roman. 

It must be borne in mind throughout the story 
that all that Wallia did was done in the name of 
Bome ; all the conquests that he won were held 
to be restored to the dominion of her Emperor. 
The dominion, whether of Honorius or of Wallia, 
seems to have been fully established in western 
and central Spain, when, it is hard to say from 
what motive, the loyal conqueror was taken away 
from his career of victory in the peninsula to enjoy 
the reward of his labours in a magnificent grant 
on the other side of the Alps. The West- Goths, 
before long to be so famous a power in Spain, 
turned away from the land of which they had been 
allowed a glimpse and no more *. Their kings were 
presently to reign on the Garonne ; it was not for 
several generations that they were to reign on the 
Tagus. Spain was left to be torn in pieces by the 
warfare of the barbarians with one another, and by 
the struggles of the Roman officers against the 
Vandals, who became great again as soon as Wallia's 
back was turned. The next year (419), when Wallia 
was no more, we read of a fierce strife between 

* Idatius (418) seems pointedly to mark how the work of 
"Wallia in Spain was cut short ; 

" Gothi, intermisso certamine quod agehant, per Constantium ad 
Gallias revocati, sedes in Aquitanica a Tolosa usque ad Oceanum 
acceperunt." 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 235 

Vandals and Suevians — Alans have passed away — in 
their Gallician corner. The Suevians, destined to 
keep their place in that region for many generations, 
had the upper hand; and the remnant, under the 
guidance of the Eoman Count Asterius, joined their 
brethren in Bsetica (420), leaving the Suevians 
successors to the great Alan dominion in central 
Spain, which they were to hold till successors of 
Wallia came back again *. This Yandal migration 
from Gallicia strengthened the feeble remnant of 
the nation which had been left in the south, and 
the Vandals again became a powerful people in Spain 
(422) under the dynasty which had ruled in their 
short-lived Gallician territory. The Vandals of Bsetica 
soon called for a Koman force to be sent against 
them under Castinus, the magister militum, and that 
Boman force did not go without Gothic help. And 
if our tale is told truly, here was a case of that 
Gothic faithlessness of which it startles us to hear 
in the declamation of Salvian. The besieged Vandals 
— we are not told the place of the siege — pressed by 
hunger, were on the point of surrender, when the 
Eoman commander unwisely risked a pitched battle, 
and forsaken by his allies — so the Eoman or Spanish 
annalist tells us — made his way back as a beaten 
man to Tarragona f. 

* Idatius, 420 ; " Wandali, Suevorum obsidione diiaissa, instante 
AsterioHispaniarum comite, et subvicario Maurocello,aliquantis Bra-r 
cera in exitu suo occisis, relicta Gallsecia ad Beeticam transierunt." 

t lb. 422 ; " Castinus magister militum cum magna manu et 
auxiliis Gothorum bellum in Bsetica Wandalis infert. quos jam ad 
inopiam vi obsidionis arctaret, adeo ut se tradere jam pararent. 



236 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

Three years later the Vandals of Bsetica had 
again grown to such power that Guntheric could 
make Himself master of two of the great cities of 
Spain, New Carthage on the eastern sea, and His- 
palis, Seville, on her great river flowing westward 
to the Ocean *. Either these great cities had 
held out all along, or they had been won back for 
Rome by Wallia. Seville now passed aw^ay from the 
Eoman power for ever ; New Carthage was again 
to become a possession of the Republic when the 
conquests of Justinian again stretched its dominion 
to the Ocean. 

But the later Vandal history is no part of our 
story, which, at this its last stage, gathers mainly 
round the West-Goths. The Gothic allies who 
failed Castinus must have been fetched from the 
land which was by this time occupied by the Gothic 
feudatories — it is hard to keep ourselves from the 
use of that and of kindred words — of the Empire 
in Gaul. There now was the great seat of Gothic 
power, the first land within the western border of 
Eome held by any Gothic people as an established 
territorial possession. The West-Goths and their 
king received the second Aquitaine to dwell in and 
to till t- It was not a land that was new to them. 

inconsulte publico certamine confligens, auxiliorum fraude deceptus 
ad Terraconam victus effugit." 

* Idatius, 424 ; " Wandali Baliaricas insulas prsedantur, deinde, 
Carthagine Spartaria et Hispali eversa et Hispaniis deprsedatis, 
Mauritaniani invadunt." 

+ Proaper (419) describes the grant with some accuracy; " Con- 
stantius patricius pacem firmat cum Wallia, data ei ad habitandam 
secunda Aquitania et quibusdam civitatibiis confinibus provin- 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 237 

They had appeared, as friends and as enemies, 
before more than one of its cities in the days when 
Atawulf marched through Gaul as the soldier of 
Attains. The settlement which, we may be sure, 
had been then designed by Atawulf, but which had 
been hindered by the successes of Constantius, 
became a real and memorable fact under Wallia. 
The land now (418) became the possession of the 
West-Goths and their king. It was given them to 
dwell in, to dwell in nominally as subjects and sol- 
diers of the Empire, in truth to make the land that 
was thus granted to them the kernel of a great, and 
for those days abiding Gothic power. The second 
Aquitaine, the land that lies between the mouths 
of the two mighty Ocean rivers of Gaul, and which 
is watered by them and their great tributaries, was 
a noble prize indeed. Its renowned cities call up 
the memories of many a stirring day in the later 
history of our own people, and they had already 
begun to win their place in the annals of the world 
and of the Church. Poitiers, on her peninsula, 
with the monuments of unrecorded days looking 
down from the other side, steep and woody, of her 
encircling stream — not yet the city of courts and 

ciarum." Philostorgius (xii. 4) witnesses that his fellow-sectaries 
were to till the ground ; (xolpdv nva rrji twv TaKaTav xapa^ ks yecopyiau 
anoKKrfpaxTaiievoi, 

The tilling of the ground by the Goths is referred to also by 
Merobaudes, Frag. viii. 1 3 ; 

" Csesareoque diu manus obluctata labori 
Sustinet acceptas nostro sub consule leges, 
Et quamvis Geticis sulcum confundat aratris 
Barbara vicinae refugit consortia gentis." 



238 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vi. 

minstrels, not yet the city of the holy Eadegund, 
but already the city of the most famous of the 
Hilaries. The Arian Goth when he entered her gates, 
entered as master into the home of the champion 
of orthodoxy, yet not minded, we may believe, to 
disturb his successors in the baptistery, well nigh 
without fellow beyond the mountains, which has 
outlived the church of Hilary's own worship, nor 
yet in his basilica which had already doubtless in 
some earlier shape crowned the hill from which the 
beacon-fire was to flash up to heaven, when, within 
a hundred years from Wallia's entry, the Frankish 
convert to the faith of Hilary * marched to break 
down the Arian dominion in the Aquitanian land. 
The Goth entered too a second time within the 
gates of Burdigala, where Atawulf had entered 
as an ally, and whence his host had marched 
as destroyers. He now held the city by the 
estuary of Ocean f, its amphitheatre doubtless still 
standing whole, perhaps for Wallia, like Theodoric, 
to wonder at the sports that pleased his Eoman 
subjects. Besides these more famous cities, the 
second Aquitaine took in also Saintes and Angouleme 
and Agen ; it took in the Petracorian city \ by the 
Dordogne, not yet the borough of Saint Fronto on 

* Greg. Tur. ii. 37. See Sketches of French Travel, " The House 
of Hilary," and " Churches of Poitiers." 

t " Burdigalam veni cujus speciosa Garumna 

Mcenibus Oceani refluas maris invehit undas, 
Navigeram per portam quae portum spatiosum 
Haec etiam maris spatiosa includit in urbe." 
Paulini Euch. 44. His grandfather before him had been there. 
X See Hist. Essays, vol. iv. p. 131, for notices of Perigueux, &c. 



VL] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 239 

his hill, but still the Vesonna of the Eoman, looking 
up across the stream to the older home of the Gaul ; 
so much at least of Yesonna as, in the years of havoc 
that had just gone by, had been fenced in with 
the mighty stones of earlier buildings, to guard at 
least an inner remnant from the flood of barbarian 
ravage. The Goth entered on the walls, the gates, 
the amphitheatre, the temple outside the narrowed en- 
closure, its mighty round tower still perhaps clothed 
with its marbles and surrounded by its columns, or 
perhaps standing as a fresh-made ruin, raw and 
gaping, to tell of the passage of beleaguering Yandals, 
Alans, or Suevians. He held the land of hills and 
streams and dwellings deftly hollowed in the hill- 
sides, dwellings of races whose record had passed 
away before the coming of the Goth or the coming 
of the Gaul. But the fief of Wallia and his people 
was not shut in within the bounds of the second 
Aquitaine ; it stretched into the first. The head 
of Aquitaine, Avaricum, Bituriges, Bourges, one day 
to be the seat of Aquitanian kings and Aquitanian 
patriarchSj formed no part of the first Gaulish 
heritage of the Goth. The Arvernian land and 
city, the land and city where the fellowship of 
Sidonius and Gregory has made us more at home 
than on any other spot of Gaulish soil, was one of 
the latest of Gothic conquests, and never knew 
Wallia as its master. But within the bounds of the 
first Aquitaine he ruled over the Eutenian city, 
one day to be Ehodez with its famous tower, over 
the land and city of the Cadurci, Cahors of evil 
name, with her peninsula and her bridge, where 



240 Western Europe m the Fifth Century, [vi. 

Eoman walls still guard the memory of men who 
fought well to save Gaul from the Eoman power- 
he ruled over the Lemorican and the Albigensian 
cities, each already seated by its river, each doubt- 
less already with its great church in its freshness 
displacing some holy place of pagan days, but whose 
chief renown was to come in later times. But if the 
new land of the Goth did not take in the whole 
of the first Aquitaine, it overleaped the bounds of 
Aquitaine in the widest sense. It stretched into the 
older Roman land of Narbo. The city which had 
seen the wedding of Atawulf and Placidia was not 
at once to pass into the hands of Atawulf 's successor ; 
but the Goth now won the city from which his 
kings were presently to reign on both sides of the 
Pyrenees. Tolosa, whence Ceepio carried off, as men 
deemed, the gold of Brennus, Tolosa, seated on no 
hill-top, but planted by the fierce stream of the 
broad Garonne, and looking back to the hills which 
the skill of later times has taught to guard her, 
Tolosa, whose capitol has proclaimed her to all 
ages as the true child of Eome, Tolosa, where the 
first basilica of the holy Saturninus must have 
already arisen beyond her walls, that renowned city 
now passed into the hands of the Goth to become 
his kingly seat. There, as at Narbo Martins, we 
shall seek in vain for traces of his presence. The 
traveller is told that the castle or palace of the 
West-Gothic kings stood where the paltry palace 
of justice of modern times now stands. That is all 
the help that he gains to call up the picture of 
Toulouse as the head of a Gothic kingdom. For 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 241 

the abiding monuments of Gothic rule, though of 
Gothic rule later than the days of Wallia, he must 
go to a place which does not seem as yet to have been 
reckoned as a city, which was not as yet a possession 
of the Goth, to the wondrous hill crowned by the 
twofold walls and towers of Carcassonne. 

Before the great barbarian invasion Aquitaine 
and the land of Novempopulania to the south of it 
were held to be the fairest regions of Gaul. The 
sternest prophet of the age, in order to rebuke the 
ungrateful wickedness of its people, has drawn a 
living picture of the richness of the land itself. It 
is to be noticed that he does not dwell specially on the 
greatness and splendour of its cities. And indeed, 
with the single exception of Bourdeaux — for Toulouse 
lies beyond the bounds of Aquitaine — none of the 
Aquitanian cities of which we have just spoken, with 
all the surpassing charm of their sites, their history, 
and their monuments, can claim a place in the first 
rank of the cities of Gaul. In the whole of Wallia's 
possessions, no city, save the two Bourdeaux and 
Toulouse, could at all stand by the side of Narbonne 
or of the great cities east of Ehone. What Salvianus 
specially enlarges on is the richness of the land itself. 
It is the marrow of all. the Gauls, the breast of all 
fruitfulness, and more than fruitfulness, of pleasant- 
ness and beauty and all delight. The meadows, the 
vineyards, the orchards, the cornfields, the groves, 
the fountains that watered them, the streams that 
flowed among them, made the masters of that land 
seem as if it was not a share of the common earth 
which had become their portion, but that they had 



242 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

become possessors of the image of paradise *. But 
the men thus highly favoured, the Christian Eomans 
of Aquitaine, had shown themselves indeed unworthy 
of the gifts of Heaven. They were given up to every 
kind of vice, to unchastity above all. The Eoman 
of Aquitaine seems to have been the foulest of 
sinners, save only the Koman of Africa. Such a 
people needed the chastisement of barbarian inva- 
sion to slay some and to reform the restf. We 
should be glad to know exactly in what case the 
land stood at the moment of Wallia's entry. From 
the general picture of the passage of the bar- 
barians which we looked at long ago, we- may fancy 
that the cities had greatly suffered ; Yesonna, with the 
narrowed enclosure of its walls, is a living witness of 
the shifts to which men were driven to defend them- 
selves. But even the cities, as in the case of Trier, 
seem to have sprung up again with wonderful ease 
to some measure of prosperity, and the fertile land, 
its cornfields, vineyards, and orchards, might be agaiiL 
smiling now that ten years had passed since the 
flood of mere havoc had passed over them. And now 

* Salvianus, vii. 2 ; " N"emini dubium est Aquitanos et Novem- 
populanos meduUam fere omnium Galliarum et uber totius fecundi- 
tatis habuisse, nee solum fecunditatis, sed quae prseponi interdum 
fecunditati solent, jucunditatis, pulcritudinis, voluptatis. Adeo 
illic omnis admodum regio aut intertexta vineis aut florulenta 
pratis aut distincta culturis aut consita pomis aut amoenata lucis 
aut inrigua fontibus aut interfusa fluminibus aut crinita messibus 
fuit, ut vere possessores ac domini terrae illius non tam soli istius 
portionem quam paradisi imaginem possidere videantur." 

t lb. 1 2 ; " Sed paulatim id ipsum tamen, ut dum pars clade 
cseditur, pars exemplo emendaretur." 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 243 

milder visitors had come ; the chaste Goths were 
there to dwell in the land and rule it and cleanse it 
from its defilements, the Goths, such true models 
of virtue, that notwithstanding their heresy, heresy 
which the presbyter of Massalia hardly deems to 
have been their fault, they might dare to look with 
some hope for a place in the kingdom of heaven *. 

The barbarian heretic, in whose dominions none was 
unclean save the Catholic Eomant, thus sat down 
to dwell in the land of the Eoman, in his stately 
cities, amid his goodly fields and vineyards, by the 
side of his cooling founts and streams. He came in 
not as a conqueror of the Eoman, but as in some 
sort his fellow-subject, at least the faithful soldier 
of his Emperor, rewarded for his faithful service 
with lands within his Empire. But it is hard to 
see how the Goth could be settled on the lands of 
the Eoman except at the cost of the Eoman. If not 
a conqueror in form, he must have been strongly 
tempted to become a conqueror in practice. The 
almost received law of such settlements was that 
the faithful soldiers of the Empire received as their 
wages two-thirds of the lands of its peaceful citizens. 
It is not clear whether this system was regularly 

* Salvianus, v. 2 ; " Errant ergo, sed bono animo errant, non odio 
sed affectu Dei, honorare se Dominum atque amare credentes. 
Quamvis non rectam habeant fidem, illi tamen hoc perfectam Dei 
sestimant caritatem. Qualiter pro Hoc ipso falsse opinionis errore 
in die judicii puniendi sint, nullus potest scire nisi judex." 

+ lb. vii. 6 ; " Esse inter Gotbos non licet scortatorem Gotbum ; 
soli inter eos praejudicio nationis et nominis permittuntur impuri 
esse Eomani." 23 ; " Apud Gotbos impudici non sunt nisi Komani, 
jam apud "Wandalos nee Eomani." 

E 2 



244 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

carried out in the Gothic settlement of Aquitaine *, 
and it is remarkable that in one case where we 
happen to know something of the details, we see 
a much greater regard to earlier rights of property 
than we should have looked for. Chastity was not 
the only virtue of the Goth, Even in grasping the 
lands of others, he could sometimes be touched with 
the natural feeling of just dealing between man and 
man, even when man and man took the shape of 
barbarian and Eoman, of conqueror and conquered. 
Paulinus of Bourdeaux and Pella, Paulinus grandson 
of Ausonius, driven from his own city to dwell in 
exile and poverty at Marseilles, had his fortunes in 
some measure raised again by the justice or bounty 
of one of the new settlers. A Goth who had coveted 
the last remnant of Paulinus' great estates sent its 
owner a payment, not, the owner thought, equal to 
the full value of the land, but a payment which 
made to the banished man the difference between 
poverty and comfort, a payment which, if the Goth 
had had the mind to refuse, the Eoman had assuredly 
no means of enforcing f. And from the picture which 

* See Dahn, K. G. v. 70. 

t Paulini Eucharisticon, 570 ; 

" Ut cum jam penitus fructus de rebus avitis 
Sperare ulterius nullos me posse probasses, 
Cunctaque ipsa etiam quae jam tenuatus habere 
Massilise potui, amissa jam proprietate, 
Conscripta adstrictus sub conditione tenerem, 
Emptorem mihi ignotum de gente Gothorum 
Excires, nostri quondam qui juris agellum 
Mercari cupiens pretium transmitteret ultro, 
Haud equidem justum, verumtamen accipienti 



VI.] Pf/allta and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 245 

Paulinus gives of the relations between Eoman and 
Goth during the earlier occupation of Bourdeaux we 
may infer that his case did not stand alone. We have 
seen that the Gothic guest, the delicate euphemism 
for the stranger who was quartered on the lands 
of the Eoman, showed himself not uncommonly the 
friend and protector of the host. So in the more 
lasting settlement, if the Eoman of Aquitaine had to 
surrender two-thirds of his land to the Goth — and, 
even without such formal division, the transfer of 
land cannot fail to have been large — we may be- 
lieve that the Eoman often enjoyed what was left to 
him with greater security under barbarian fellow- 
ship than if he had possessed the whole when subject 
to those exactions of Imperial rule under which 
Salvian paints every Eoman land as groaning. 

A third Teutonic kingdom had thus arisen in Gaul. 
The West-Gothic kingdom was now far greater 
than those of the Franks or the Burgundians ; it was 
the first of Gaulish powers ; it was presently, by 
extension beyond the Pyrenees, to become for a while 
the first of all powers beyond the Alps. Of the 
other two Teutonic nations which had settled on 
Gauhsh soil, one hardly knows how to speak of the 
Franks. The Safians, under their long-haired kings, 
are dwelling on lands of the Empire ; they are in form 
subjects and soldiers of the Empire, and in the last 
character we have more than once seen them do good 
service. But though they have come geographically 

Votivum, fateor, posset quo scilicet una 
Et veteres lapsi census fulcire ruinas 
Et vitare nova cari mild damna pudoris." 



246 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

within the Eoman boundary, they have not in any 
but a purely military sense come within the Eoman 
pale. They have not come into the Roman world 
in the same way in which Goths and even Burgun- 
dians have come into it. The Franks still stand 
outside almost like the Saxons themselves. Sixty 
years later, they have not yet adopted the religion 
of the Empire ; they are not even Arian Christians. 
The Frank, soldier of Kome, perhaps all the more 
because he is the soldier of Eome, has not yet 
convinced himself, as the Burgundian has already 
done, that the God of the Eomans is stronger than 
the gods of his fathers*. When that conviction 
was at last brought home to his mind, the conse- 
quences were memorable indeed. For the military 
defence of the Empire he is better to be trusted than 
any other of its nominal vassals ; but he has rent 
away a certain portion of the earth from fellowship 
with the Eoman and Christian world in a way that 
even the revolted Briton, whether in his island or on 
the mainland, has not done. The Burgundian was 
a later settler on Imperial soil than the Frank ; but 
he became a member of the Eoman and Christian 
world far more speedily. Still he was a new-comer, 
and was only gradually making his way from his 
first Ehenish home, from the land of Mainz and 
Worms, to those cities of the Ehoneland which became 
the dwelling-place and the burying-place of his kings, 
but which we have had to look at mainly as the 

* Sokrates, vii. 30 ; Kara vovv Xa^^dvovres OTi 'Pafuiiav 6 Q(6s 
l<Txyp5)s Tols (po^ovfievois avrov /Soij^et, Koivjj yvafxrj Travres tm to jriOTCvaat 

Tw XpioTM i\r]Xvda(riv. This is in fact Coifi's argiiment. 



VI.] Wallta and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 247 

prize for which so many rival claimants of the Eoman 
people strove in arms. At this moment the Goth, 
lord of Toulouse, lord of the second Aquitaine and of 
much beyond the second Aquitaine, is the foremost 
figure in Gaul. And at this moment he is, before all 
his fellows, the immediate vassal and soldier of the 
Empire. It is perhaps hard for any who come to 
these studies fresh from the popular notions of Goths, 
Huns, and Vandals — one has seen the uncouth Asiatic 
name thrust in as a fellow between two great 
branches of our own stock — as simple destroyers of 
Eome and her civilization, to take in the fact of the 
abiding life of Eome in these times, how all Gaul 
was still under the nominal obedience of the Empire, 
and how a large part of it was still under its immediate 
rule. And those who get their notions of Gaul from 
a time later in the century, from the time when we 
come to our first glimpses of continuous Frankish 
history, may be at least a little startled by the political 
arrangements of the days of Wallia, which are so 
strikingly unlike the arrangements of the days of 
Euric. Long before either people passes under the 
power of the Frank, the West-Goth is the enemy of 
Eome, making conquests at the expense of Eome, 
while of all the Western powers the Burgundian 
kingdom is that which stands in the closest relations 
to the Empire. In those days again the continental 
Briton had become the friend of Eome ; in the 
nomenclature of our forefathers the Bret-wealas had 
joined with the Rum-wealas against the Goth and 
the Saxon. As yet the Goth is the faithful soldier 
of Eome, holding his noble fief as a free gift of Eome, 



248 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

holding it by the tenure of winning back the lost 
subjects of Eome, the Bret-wealas of Armorica among 
them. Such was the work of Wallia, during the 
short time he wore the Gothic cynehelm; Gunthachar, 
still standing aloof, having made his way into the 
Empire as the ally of the tyrant Jovinus, formally 
acknowledged as he was by the lords of the world 
at Ravenna and Constantinople, held from them no 
such commission as this. Throughout Gaul, in the 
theory of this time, the supremacy of Rome was 
universal ; her immediate dominion was the rule ; 
the dominion of her vassal kings was the exception. 
And it should be noted that these exceptional terri- 
tories, though very large, were isolated. The three 
Teutonic powers, Gothic, Burgundian, and Frankish, 
were carefully kept from marching on one another 
by the retention of all central Gaul in Imperial 
hands. To restore central and north-western Gaul 
to the Roman power was in truth the mission of 
Wallia, the tenure by which he held another part 
of Gaul as the allotted dwelling-place of his people. 
That allotted dwelling-place had no foreign frontier ; 
the Goth had no neighbours except his august 
overlord and his overlord's doubtful subjects in 
Armorica. Against these, as we have seen, he had 
a work to do, and he did it. It could have been 
only the sword of Wallia which won back for the 
Empire that restored dominion in Armorica both in 
the wider and the narrower sense which was so 
pleasing in the eyes of Rutilius"'. To the south 

* See above, p. 169. Besides Eutilius we have another witness 
to the recovery of Armorica in Merobaudes, viii. 1. 8 ; 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitame. 249 

the Gothic dominion was carefully kept awa,y from 
any Spanish frontier. From the heights above his 
capital by the Garonne the Gothic king could look 
forth on the mountains — the Pyrensean Alps of the 
geography of his day — which parted Gaul from 
the Spanish land where he had been heaved on the 
shield, and where he had smitten the Vandal and 
the Alan. But his dominion nowhere reached to the 
foot of the mountain barrier. I'rom the Frank and 
the Burgundian he was parted by a far wider stretch 
of Eoman land, and much of it which he had himself 
made Boman land once more. But the firm friend- 
ship of Goth and Eoman lasted no longer than the 
days of Wallia, and the days of Wallia were short. 
The historian of his own people strangely dates events 
in the twelfth year of his reign "^'^ ; an annalist who 

" Lustrat Aremoricas jam mitior incola saltus ; 
Perdidit et mores tellus, adsuetaque ssevo 
Crimine quaesitas silvas celare rapinas 
Discit inexpertis Cererem committere campis." 
* Nothing can be more confused ttan Jordanis' account of 
Wallia, Getica, 32, 33. He seems to conceive him as reigning in 
Gaul from the beginning. The peace of 418 is contracted by 
Constantius marching from Spain, and "Wallia marching to the 
Pyrenees from the north (" Constantius ovans cum copia armatorum 
et pene jam regio apparatu Spanias petit ; cui Vallias rex Gothorum 
non cum minori procinctu ad claustra Pyrensei occurrit; ubi ab 
utraque parte legatione directa ita convenit pacisci," &c.). In 
his twelfth year, he invades Spain, and the Yandals flee before 
him into Africa (" Duodecimo anno regni Valise . . . videns Valia 
Vandalos in suis finibus, id est Spanise solo, audaci temeritate ab 
interioribus partibus Gallicise ubi eos fugaverat dudum Atauulfus, 
egresses cuncta in preedas vastare, eo fere tempore quo Hierius 
et Ardabares consules processissent [a. D. 427], nee mora mox 
contra eos movit exercitum." Then follows the crossing of 



250 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

is better to be trusted makes him die in the very year 
of the settlement. His life, at least his kingly life, 
was short ; and he left no son of his own blood to 
wear the cynehelm of Alaric after him. The rule of 
the " Gothic lot " in Gaul passed to the first bearer of 
the great name of Theodoric, a countryman but not 
a kinsman. But Wallia left a daughter, who was 
fated to be the mother of a barbarian chief who filled 
no small space in the world in his own day. It 
is as the grandfather of Hicimer, half Goth, half 
Suevian, that Sidonius sings of the deeds of Wallia. 
But it is only of his Spanish deeds that the man of 
Lyons and Auvergne could bring himself to sing. 
Of his acts in Gaul he says nothing, but he tells how 
he smote the Vandal in the Tartessian land, how he 
crushed the allied might of the Alan, and heaped 
western Calpe with their dead bodies *. 

Gaiseric into Africa. Wallia wishes to follow, but is hindered by 
the storm of which we have already heard. Then (c. 33) "nobi- 
litatus intra Spanias incruentamque victoriam potitus Tolosam 
revertitur, Romano imperio fugatis hostibus aliquantas provincias, 
quod promiserat, derelinquens, sibique adversa post longum vali- 
tudine superveniente rebus humanis excessit." 

Yet it is plain that Wallia died very soon after the settlement in 
Aquitaine. Idatius places his death in 418; Prospex", who places 
the settlement in 419, must have put his death in 420; though 
he does not record it. See Clinton; Dahn, K. G. v. 71. Olym- 
piodoros (465) does not give the date, OlaXiov tov (PvXdpxov reXeuTiJ- 

aavTos, Qevdepi-^os Trpos ap^fjv tiabe'x^eTai. 
* Carm. ii. 363 ; 

" Quod Tartessiacis avus hujus Wallia terris 
Wandalicas turmas et junctos Martis Alanos 
Stravit, et occiduam texere cadavera Calpem." 
This last line ma^ refer to the shipwreck which shattered "Wallia's 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 251 

Yet, if the reign of Wallia was short, his work 
was great, and in a sense abiding. His Aquitanian 
kingdom perished within a century, and all that 
the Goth kept on Gaulish soil was a strip of Medi- 
terranean coast which formed no part of his first 
grant. But Wallia was none the less the first to 
found, on a large part of the soil of Gaul, an 
orderly Teutonic kingdom, a kingdom which, though 
it was soon to have its wars with Kome, was still 
essentially a kingdom of the school of Atawulf. 
Thus we cannot say that the kingdom of the 
Burgundians was as yet ; we cannot say that the 
kingdom of the Franks ever became such. Herein 
we have reached one of the main causes of the 
abiding difference between northern and southern 
Gaul. The establishment between the Loire and the 
Garonne of a Teutonic people who came in so dis- 
tinctly as the allies and champions of Eome has had 
a deep effect on later history. The West-Gothic 
dominion in Gaul, like the more splendid but less 
abiding East-Gothic dominion in Italy, was the rule 
of Gothic kings reigning over a Koman people ac- 
cording to Roman law. The Goth came ; he passed 
away ; but he left the land thoroughly Eoman. He 
left it more Roman than he found it. His conquest 
had the usual effect of such conquests. The conqueror 
becomes the pupil and missionary of those whom he 
immediately subdues, and helps to root out any 
traces that may be left of any state of things that is 
earlier than either. So in an earlier day the political 

fleet ; but surely the corpses are more naturally those of Vandals 
slain in Wallia's campaign in Bsetica. 



252 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

supremacy of Eome in the eastern lands only con- 
firmed the intellectual supremacy of Greece ; wher- 
ever the Eoman went, he carried Greek culture with 
him ; he became as familiar with the tongue of 
Greece as with his own, but he never learned the 
tongue of the Syrian or the Egyptian. So the 
Teutonic conquerors of the western lands of Eome 
became pupils and missionaries of Eome, helping to 
root out any traces that were left of things older than 
Boman rule. The Goth, the Burgundian, the Frank, 
even, we may be sure, the Vandal, all learned to 
speak the tongue of Eome ; none of them learned to 
speak the tongue of the Celt, the Iberian, the Phoe- 
nician, or the Moor. Thus while the new Celtic state, 
the Britain of the mainland, was growing up in the 
north-western peninsula of Gaul, a powerful influence 
was brought to strengthen the work which had been 
so long going on of wiping out whatever Celtic traces 
were still left in other parts of the land. We are 
startled to find, in a casual, a sportive and something 
dark, passage of Sidonius, words which might seem 
to imply that in his day traces of Celtic speech still 
lingered among the Eoman nobles of Auvergne"". 
I am not sure that his words necessarily imply all 

* Sidonius writes to Ecdicius (Ep. iii. 3) ; " Mitto isthic ob 
gratiam pueritise tuse undique gentium confluxisse studia lite- 
rarum, tuseque personse quondam debitum, quod sermonis Celtici 
squamam depositura nobilitas, nunc oratorio stylo, nunc etiam 
Camenalibus modis imbuebatur. lUud in te affectum principa- 
liter universitatis accendit, quod quos dim Latinos fieri exe- 
geras deinceps esse barbaros vetuisti." But I am not sure that 
these words, at once playful and high-poHte, need be taken quite 
literally. 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 253 

the inferences which have been drawn from them ; 
but of one thing we may be certain, that the Gothic 
conquest at which Sidonius so deeply grieved went 
far to root out any traces of the elder speech which 
still lived on. What had escaped the sword of 
Caesar did Euric slay. In this point there is no 
difference between the Goth and the Frank ; but in 
another point the two Teutonic conquerors stand 
quite apart. The coming of the Goth did not bring 
with it anything like that Teutonic infusion in blood, 
speech, institutions, which the Frankish settlement 
brought into northern Gaul, and which has ever 
distinguished France from Aquitaine and Burgundy. 
The saying, far truer and truer in far more senses 
than he who spoke it dreamed of, that " there are no 
Frenchmen south of Loire," has been largely made 
to be true by the presence in those lands of Wallia 
and his West-Goths. If he, first of his race, made 
a part of Western Europe to be in some sense Gothia, 
he ruled that whatever he made into Gothia should 
be Eomania still. He made things ready for the 
great day when Goth and Eoman as equal powers, 
equal European and Christian powers, leading in 
their train the European but not yet Christian con- 
tingent of the loyal Frank, should march forth side 
by side to the battle with the Hun. 

One point must never be allowed to pass out of mind, 
that, for two generations longer (419-486), the Eoman 
power in Gaul was still a real and living thing, 
keeping on its being alongside of the powers of the 
Goth, the Burgundian, and the Frank. Wherever 
the rule of Eome had not been disturbed — for the 



254 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. \yi. 

rule of Constantine was as much the rule of Eome as 
the rule of Honorius — wherever it had been restored 
by the victories of Rome's Gothic ally, there the 
dominion of the Empire went on untouched. So it 
did no less in Spain, within so much of the land as the 
Suevian and Vandal had either never occupied or had 
been forced to give back to the might of Wallia. 
Within a large, though irregularly shaped, part of 
Gaul, Caesar Augustus reigned over his Koman 
people, and it was sometimes decided on Gaulish soil 
who Caesar Augustus should be. More than thirty 
years after these times, a man of the land of Sidonius 
and of Gregory, the father-in-law of our prsefect, 
poet, and prelate, the Arvernian Avitus, was pro- 
claimed Augustus, not at Home or at Ravenna, but 
on the capitol of Toulouse and in the palace of Aries. 
And he came back after his Italian reign to lay his 
bones in the holiest place of the Arvernian land (455), 
before the tomb of Saint Julian of Brioude *. Even 
then, after the Huns had been driven back from Gaul, 
Aries, the city of the Constantines, was still neither 
Gothic nor Burgundian, but Eoman as of old. It 
remained so, along with the land to which the name 
of the Frovince still specially clave, and from which 

* Idatius, 455 ; " In Galliis Avitus Gallus civis ab exercita 
Gallicano et ab honoratis, primum Tolosae, dehinc apud Arelatum 
Augustus appellatus, Romam pergit et suscipitur." Sidonius, in bis 
Panegyric, has of course mucb more to say of bim, as not merely 
" Gallus civis " but specially Arvernian. His deatb in bis native 
land comes from Gregory of Tours, ii. 11; " Basilicam sancti 
Juliani martyris cum multis mun ribus expetivit. Sed impleto in 
itinere vitse cursu, obiit delatusque ad Brivatinsem vicum, ad pedes 
antedicti martyris est sepultus." 



VI.] WalHa and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 255 

it has never been wiped out, for five and twenty years 
longer (480). The land still loyal to Kome when Kome 
had in a manner ceased to be Eoman, the land which 
sent an unavaihng wail to its sovereign at Constanti- 
nople against the rule of Odowaker*, passed in the 
course of the next four years under the dominion of 
Euric the West-Goth f. 

The Goth had indeed often striven to make his 
way into Aries in the course of the sixty years 
between the settlement of Wallia in Aquitaine and 
the conquests of Euric in Provence. And no wonder. 
For those were the days of the highest greatness of 
the city of Constantine by the Ehone. Thirty-five 
years before the elevation of Avitus (420), two years at 
most after the death of Wallia, the little Kome of 
Gaul had been raised by the law of Honorius and 
Theodosius to its highest place, as the head, the 
metropolis, of seven provinces of Gaul. It is from the 
sounding language of this decree that we get our 
most glowing picture of the prosperity of Aries at 
this moment. The proud city which received the 
choicest gifts of all the world was to be the place of 

* This comes out in the fragment of Candidas, 476 ; 'oSo'a»tpos 

IraXt'a? xai avTrjs eKpuTTjae 'Pa)[iT]s, icai (TTacriacrdvTap avrS rav Sucr/ttKoJi' 
TdKarSiv SiaTvpecr^eva-afievcov re avTcHv Koi 'OboaKpov Trpos Zrjvcava, '08od- 
Kpm paXXov 6 Zr]VQ)v eniKXivev. These western Gauls cannot mean 
those of Armorica as opposed to those of the Province, but rather, 
in the mouth of the Byzantine writer, the Gauls of Gaul as distin- 
guished from those of Asia. So I have known an American writer 
distinguish Helias of La Fleche as " Count of Eastern Maine," 
that is of the Gaulish county as opposed to the New England 
state. 

t See Jordanis, Qetica, 47; Isidor. Chron. Goth. 418. 



256 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

yearly meeting for the chief men of seven provinces, 
those of Vienne, two of Narbonne, Novempopulania, 
Maritime Alps, and, what we might hardly have 
looked for, both the Aqnitaines, though the second of 
them and part of the other had been given for the 
Goths to dwell in and to till *. So little was the 
supreme rule of the Emperor held to be taken away by 
the presence in the Aquitanian land of his faithful 
subjects and soldiers. The privilege may seem a 
vain one ; yet it was cherished and remembered, 
and ages afterwards copies of this law of Hono- 
rius and Theodosius were still made and kept in the 
archives of the great South-Gaulish cities. And in 
this grouping of provinces round Aries we see in a 
marked way the signs of that division between 
southern and northern Gaul of which we have 
already spoken. It was only of the lands south of 
Loire that Aries was to be the immediate head, the 
place of yearly meeting, though doubtless Aries now 
supplanted Trier, no longer a fit centre for Eoman 
rule, as the dwelling-place of the Eoman prsefect of the 
Gauls. Yet lands which formed no part of the seven 
provinces, which sent no deputies to the gathering at 
Aries, still clave to Home and to all that the name of 
Kome implied. Or if we cannot say that they clave 
to Rome when they were cut off from all communica- 
tion with Eome, Old or New, when the Old Eome 
obeyed a barbarian king and the New obeyed an 
Emperor who disowned them, they at least clave 
to their Eoman life and Eoman speech and gloried 

* Cod. Theod. There is a special mention of " Novempopulania 
et secunda Aquitania, quse provinciae longius constitutae sunt." 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aqnitaine. 257 

in the name of Komans, while Goths, Franks, and 
Britons were the barbarian neighbours who hemmed 
them in. In Armorica in the widest sense, in the 
land between Seine and Loire, the Koman life abode 
untouched for more than sixty years after the Roman 
power had been restored in those lands by Wallia. 
To the West, the peninsular Armorica became inde- 
pendent as the new British land. To the North, the 
Frank, if not as yet actually a conqueror of fresh 
Roman lands, was growing and strengthening him- 
self to become such before long. To the South, the 
conquests of the Goth, the advance of the power of 
Euric, combined with the southward march of the 
Burgundians along the Ehoneland, altogether cut off 
this central Roman land from the Roman lands of 
Italy and Provence. The day of sorrow came when 
Sidonius saw his dear Auvergne pass under Gothic 
rule, and when he himself was carried away from his 
flock and city, at the bidding of a Gothic master. 
But lands further to the North still were Roman. 
After Odowaker began to rule in Italy, independent 
Roman powers still lived on alike in Gaul and in 
Dalmatia. When ^lla and Cissa drew up their keels 
on the shore which they were to make a Saxon shore 
in a new sense, there was still a Roman coast, a coast 
which they may well have been wont to ravage, on 
the southern shore of the Channel. But between the 
Gaulish and the Dalmatian remnant there was one 
marked difference. In Dalmatia an Emperor who 
had reigned in Italy still went on reigning after he 
had ceased to reign in Italy, and it was to the master 
of Italy, to Odowaker himself, that the power of 

s 



258 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

Julius Nepos gave way. In the still Eoman land of 
Gaul, at Soissons and Orleans, at Paris and Eouen, 
there is no distinct evidence to show whether any 
Emperor was acknowledged at all. In this isolated 
Eoman dominion the Eoman power was maintained 
by two rulers, father and son, of whom it seems at 
least clear that neither ever assumed the purple, 
-^gidius, faithful subject of Majorian, enemy of 
Wallia's Suevian grandson, kept on in Gaul the Eoman 
independence which he strove in vain to keep on in 
Italy. After him came his son, Syagrius, the last 
Eoman ruler in GauL Some give him only the 
obvious title of Duke ; but in one version, in that 
which has become most famous, in the record of 
Gregory of Auvergne and Tours, he stands forth 
with a style which we do not look for till we have 
reached quite another land and quite another time. 
The last of Eoman princes in the land that Gains 
Julius won for Eome appears as bearing at Soissons 
the title which some deemed that Gaius Julius 
would gladly have borne in Eome. Since the last 
"Eex Eomanus"fled toArdeaand Cumae, the dreaded 
monosyllable had never been coupled with the name 
of Eome. Her " rex sacrorum," the '* regium " of her 
pontiffs, lived on as survivals of Numa and of Ancus. 
As the Empire grew, as extraordinary commissioners 
grew into abiding sovereigns, the cognates and 
derivatives of the hated word were freely applied to 
the rule, to the house, the whole belongings of the 
Emperor. All about him was kingly ; even his wife 
was in common speech " regina " ; but none save one 
member of the Flavian house ever bore the hated 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 259 

style as a formal title. That there was a " Hanni- 
balianus Eex" we know by the sure witness of 
coins; we do not know what his kingdom was or 
where it lay; assuredly he was not "Eex Romanus" 
or "Rex Romanorum." But this last astounding 
title, which seems to bring before us an East-Frankish 
Henry six hundred years before his time, was borne, 
if Gregory is to be believed, by Syagrius of Soissons. 
It may be so or it may not. Gregory, used to kings, 
may simply have carried back to Syagrius the style 
of the Ohilperics and Guntchramns among whom his 
own life was spent. The name was sometimes used 
in a strange way, whether by carelessness or design. 
Sulpicius Severus applies the name, at least in its 
oblique cases, pretty freely to both tyrants and lawful 
princes. Other cases in the fifth century might be 
found in which an Emperor or tyrant is spoken of in 
the same way. But the " Syagrius Rex Romanorum " 
of Gregory sounds like a formal title *. Could such 
a title have been used ? It may be that the Romans 
of Gaul, cut off from the Romans of other lands, 
brought down to form as it were simply one among 
the several nations of Gaul, surrounded by nations 
ruled by kings, may, like the Hebrews of old, have 

* *' Siagrius Eomanorum rex " c. ii. 27, where see the note to 
Giesebrecht's German translation. He is '• Eomanorum patricius " 
in the Hist. Epit. 15, and " Dux" in Hincmar. 

I doubt whether Sulpicius ever uses the word in the nominative. 
It may be refining ; but this almost seems like another stage, 
beyond that in which the derivatives are freely used but not the 
word itself. " Siacriua Eomanorum rex," as a formal description, 
has a somewhat different sound from the casual use of " regi " or 
" regem." 

S 2 



260 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vi. 

wished to be like the nations round about them, and 
to have a king to go before them. JEgidius, father 
of Syagrius, is said, in a strange legend, to have been 
for a while a king, not indeed King of the Bomans, 
but chosen King of the Franks, as Belisarius might 
have been chosen King of the East-Goths. For his 
son to be King of the Komans was only one step 
further. Anyhow, under whatever style, the Boman 
state in Gaul lived on after the barbarians had begun 
to rule in Italy. And it may be after all, as I have 
hinted already, that when the Boman of Gaul yielded 
to the Frank, he yielded only to Eoman authority 
in another shape. It may be that Syagrius, king 
or tyrant, was disowned by the Augustus at New 
Eome, to whom his kingly style would certainly not 
be pleasing. It may be that Chlodowig, soon to be 
Consul, some said Augustus, entered Orleans and 
Paris, as Sarus strove to enter Valence, as a Koman 
officer sent to chastise a tyrant. One thing at least is 
certain; at Soissons, as at Salona, the year 476 a.d., 
the year so dear to the compiler and the crammer, 
the year so really memorable at Bome and at Kavenna, 
was a year of no special moment. 

We have thus traced the events of thirteen 
memorable years, years which, more than any other, 
fixed the later history of Western Europe. The 
great powers of Western Europe in later times, 
England, France, Castile, are not yet in being ; nor 
can we say that the lesser powers of Wales, Bur- 
gundy, Aquitaine, Aragon, are as yet in being either. 
But the first steps have been taken which were 
in the course of time, in some cases in no long 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 261 

course of time, to call them all into being. No part 
of Britain is as yet England ; but the Koman has 
left the island, and the Angle and the Saxon are 
on their voyage, to reach the prize, it may be, some- 
what sooner than we are taught by the reckoning 
of years that we know best. And when the history 
of the Angle and the Saxon on British soil begins, 
then begins also the history of Wales, the history 
of the British people in their old land, but in their 
new character of Wealas to their Teutonic invaders. 
The French win Gaul ; it is but a small part of Gaul, 
and not that part to which the name was specially 
to cleave, which is already known as Francia ; but 
he who gave it the name is already in the land, and 
ready to march on. But the presence of the Goth 
far to the south of him has fixed a barrier which has 
decreed that, though southern Gaul may one day 
politically become French, yet it shall never become 
Frankish by actual settlement or French by the final 
results of such settlement. In Spain it might seem 
that not even the beginnings of the modern world 
are to be seen. We left the peninsula strangely 
parted out between the Eoman, the Vandal, and the 
Suevian, parted out in a way which certainly does 
not give the slightest hint of a future Castile, but 
which does suggest a future Aragon and a future 
Andalusia, and which might be even thought to 
suggest more faintly a future Portugal. Bat they 
suggest these things only geographically. The Vandal 
was soon to pass of his own will from Spain, to 
play a great part in Africa, and to be swept away 
by the revived power of Kome. The Koman and 



262 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vi, 

the Suevian were in their turn to yield to the West- 
Goth. He has not as yet a foot of ground in the 
land where Atawulf died and where Wallia conquered ; 
but he has seen the land, and he is fated to come 
back to it. He is to come back to it to put on 
in the course of time the noblest character of all. 
The Hun was a worse foe than the Saracen ; but 
against the Hun the Goth had to fight but for 
a single day; against the Saracen he had to wage 
the ceaseless battle of five hundred years, till the 
Saracen was shut up in the momentary home of the 
Yandal, to pass at last back to the land whence he 
himself came, the land from which the Vandal had 
been rooted out. That the slow and steady resurrec- 
tion of Spain was essentially the work of the Goth 
we cannot doubt. The tameless mountaineers of the 
north could keep their homes against all comers, 
Eoman, Gothic, and Saracen ; it was hardly they 
who won back the land step by step from the passes 
of the Pyrenees to the Mount of Tarik. The name 
of the Goth has passed away alike from Spain and 
from Gaul ; but he did his work well in both lands. 
The Frank was to have his day of glory too against 
the same enemy, when the Arab lords of Koman 
Africa and Gothic Spain were broken in pieces by 
the hammer of Austrasian Karl. But the abiding 
life of Spain, the long endurance, the winning back 
of the land inch by inch, surely came of a spirit 
which the Goth had breathed into the Eoman land. 
The Spain of 711, much as it might have fallen 
back from the great days of Gothic rule, was still 
something widely different from the Spain of 409. 



VI.] Wallia and the Settlement of Aquitaine. 263 

It might be crushed ; but it could rise again ; it 
could rise again of its own strength. The whole 
inheritance of Atawulf on Spanish soil was the space 
of ground — far less than seven feet — which was 
needed for the casket of the infant Theodosius. 
But his words and his works followed him. The man 
who laid the foundations of modern Europe had 
trained a people who could endure the calling to 
be the foremost and most abiding champions in 
western lands of Europe in her higher garb of 
Christendom. 



[VII.]^''^ 

[THEODOEIC THE WEST-GOTH AND AETIUS.] 

In a former course of lectures I dealt at some 
length with the revolutions of Gaul, Spain, and 
Britain during about twelve eventful years in the 
early part of the fifth century. Those were the years 
which saw the great Teutonic settlements in Gaul 
and Spain, and which, if they did not see any actual 
Teutonic settlements in Britain, saw the events which 
opened the way for such settlements and which gave 
them, when they came, their distinctive character. 
From Britain the dominion of Bome has passed away ; 
an independent British people is left, greatly modified 
no doubt by more than four hundred years of Boman 
intercourse, by not far short of four hundred years of 
Bom an dominion, but still in their essence a British 
people, not a Boman people in the sense in which 
the provincials of Gaul and Spain were Boman. In 
Gaul and Spain the Boman power still lives on ; but 
Borne no longer keeps the full dominion over the 
whole land. She has sunk to be one power among 
many. The majesty, the magic, of her name still 
has its influence over strangers and enemies ; inde- 
pendent rulers, even conquering foes, are ready to 

[* This lecture was originally the first of a second course.] 



Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 265 

acknowledge some shadowy supremacy in the Eoman 
Augustus. But as regards practical dominion, the 
rule of Rome takes in only a part of the great lands 
of Gaul and Spain, and that not the larger part. In 
the other parts of those lands, the Roman life still 
goes on ; the tongue, the law, the creed, of Rome is 
still respected ; the Roman bishop still keeps his 
church in the Roman city; the Roman magistrate 
still dispenses the law of Rome to a Roman people ; 
but the political power has passed away from the 
Roman Emperor to the Gothic, Burgundian, or 
Suevian king. Still it is most important to bear in 
mind, not only how much of Roman life stayed on in 
the lands which passed under Teutonic rule, but how 
large a part of the land still, deep into the fifth cen- 
tury, remained under direct Roman rule. It was not 
till eighty years after the great crossing of the Rhine 
that Gaul saw the end of direct Roman dominion in 
the fall of the kingdom, duchy, patriciate, whatever 
we are to call it, of ^gidius and Syagrius. By that 
time the rule of Rome had passed away from Spain ; 
but it had passed away but yesterday. Only then 
continuous Roman rule lasted longer in Gaul than in 
Spain ; when it did pass away, it passed away for 
ever. A day was to come when the titles of Roman 
sovereignty were again to be heard in Gaul ; but 
they were to be heard because a lord of Gaul and 
Germany was one day to become the lord of Rome. 
And when they were again heard in Gaul, they were 
to be again heard in Spain also. For the lord of 
Gaul and Germany and Rome was to be also the lord 
of that corner of Spain where continuous Roman rule 



266 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

had been most abiding. But before that day came, 
that more direct Eoman rule which the fifth century 
brought to an end in both Gaul and Spain was to 
revive for seventy years in another corner of the 
Spanish land. The only Eoman rule that Gaul saw 
after the fall of Syagrius was the rule of her own 
KarKngs. But Justinian and Heraclius, who never 
reigned in Narbo and Nemausus, did reign in Gades 
and New Carthage. In the middle of the sixth 
century, in the first years of the seventh, Caesar 
Augustus, from his throne in the youDger Rome, 
again ruled from the Euphrates to the Ocean. 

But Spain, like Italy or Constantinople, is, for our 
immediate purposes, of only secondary importance. 
Often as our own island has passed away from our 
sight, often as those who were presently to make it 
our own have passed away also, neither the land nor 
the future folk of the land ought ever to have passed 
out of our thoughts. Every event that I have 
dwelled on in continental history, every picture that 
I have striven to give of continental life, during this 
great period of the Wandering of the Nations, has 
been meant as an indirect contribution to the history 
of Britain and of the Teutonic conquerors of Britain. 
The light of one land enables us, by the power of 
contrast, to pierce through the darkness of the other. 
The recorded events of the one land enable us, by 
the same power of contrast, to call up the unrecorded 
events of the other. By seeing what Teutonic con- 
quest was on the mainland, we learn what it was not 
in Britain, and thereby we learn what it was. But 
for this purpose the land that best teaches us is 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 267 

Gaul. Of the lands concerned it is, on the whole, 
the land of which we know the most. We have far 
fuller pictures of the men and events of Gaul during 
this time than we have of the men and the events of 
Spain ; we have pictures at least as full as we have 
of the men and the events of Italy. Nor is it to 
be forgotten that what we know of Italy is largely 
owing to the witness of a man of Gaul. The full 
light of Gaul is best fitted to pierce the utter dark- 
ness of Britain. And on every other ground Gaul is 
of all continental lands the one which it is most 
obvious to compare and to contrast with Britain. 
Geography and history have ever brought Gaul and 
Britain into close contact. And at no time were they 
brought into closer contact than in those opening 
years of the fifth century with which we have already 
dealt. We have seen how deeply the events of one 
land affected the other. And in Gaul and Britain 
too we see to some extent the same actors, actors 
who play no part in the contemporary story of Spain 
or Italy. In Gaul, as in Britain, we have to record 
the doings of the Briton and the Saxon, though in 
Gaul their doings form only a secondary part of the 
main tale. Gaul gives us the typical picture of 
a Boman land passing under one form of Teutonic 
conquest, while Britain, in its very absence of a pic- 
ture, does in truth give us the clearest picture of 
a Roman land passing under Teutonic conquest of 
another kind. But it is only by the clearly marked 
shapes of the Gaulish picture that we can read any 
meaning into the dim and shadowy outlines of the 
British picture. The history of Gaul then, both for 



268 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

its own sake and as our indirect guide to the history 
— shall we say to the lack of history 1 — of Britain, 
must be the main subject of our thoughts for some 
time to come. And for some time to come the main 
subject in the history of Gaul is the history of the 
West-Gothic power in Aquitaine. 

We left Gaul, about the year 420, divided into 
the lands which were still under the direct rule of 
the Empire and the lands which had passed into the 
possession of its nominal vassals. These last lands, 
the dominions of the Goth in the south-west, of the 
Frank in the north-east, of the Burgundian in the 
central east, are all isolated. The immediate Boman 
dominion stretches uninterruptedly, with however 
irregular a frontier, from the borders of Italy to the 
Ocean and the British Channel. All central Gaul, all 
the northern coast west of the marshes of the Frank, 
is Boman ; for the sword of Wallia is held to have 
won back the Briton of the mainland to the obedience 
of Caesar. The bidding of Bavenna is obeyed at 
Soissons, at Paris, and at Bouen. This is a very 
different state of things from that of a few years 
earlier, when Vandal, Alan, and Suevian laid waste 
the whole land at pleasure, save the corner which 
was held by the British tyrant at Aries. And this 
great revival of the Eoman power was largely due 
to Eoman valour and conduct in the person of Con- 
stantius. He had taught the Goth that the Boman 
could still strike, and that it was better to have Csesar 
for a friend than for an enemy. Still the existence 
of the Boman dominion in Gaul depended on the 
will of the Goths and of the other barbarian powers. 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetms. 269 

We may doubt whether any one of them could as 
yet overthrow it by a single effort. It was before 
all things unlikely that they should all unite to 
overthrow it by a common effort. Eome might even 
hope, if attacked by one barbarian power, to find 
allies among the others. When the Koman power 
in Gaul did at last fall, two generations after the 
time which we have reached, it was because it had 
been so gradually dismembered by one enemy that it 
could at least be swallowed with no great effort by 
another. That Eoman society and Koman govern- 
ment in Gaul lived on, for nearly seventy years after 
the settlement of the Goth, for eighty years after 
the combined invasion of Vandal, Suevian, and Alan, 
is a speaking witness indeed to the magic power 
which Eome exercised over the minds of all who had 
to deal with her. She had indeed led captive her 
conquerors. 

We begin then our present inquiry with the history 
of that West-Gothic dominion in Gaul which grew 
out of the Imperial grant of the second Aquitaine, 
and something more than the second Aquitaine, to 
Wallia and his people. To Wallia succeeded Theo- 
doric, the first bearer of that renowned name with 
whom we have to deal *. Gothic custom allowed 

* The likeness of the name Theodoric to a familiar class of Greek 
names — the likeness which caused a modern writer to think that 
he was doing the specially Teutonic thing when he spoke of its 
greatest bearer by the far later form of Dietrich — seems to have 
been caught at from the beginning. When the name was borne 
by the great East-Goth, it was no longer to be trifled with ; as 



270 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

free choice of kings, and it does not appear that 
Theodoric was a kinsman of Wallia. His own words 
however, taken in their natural sense, would imply 
that he was a grandson of Alaric. through a daughter*. 
In any case he was the founder of a dynasty which 
kept the West-Gothic crown through several genera- 
tions. And he was a worthy founder. His reign 
was long and stirring ; his end was the most glorious 
that could fall to the lot of man. And he had to 
strive with a worthy rival, to be at last changed into 
a worthier comrade. The two great elements in the 
Gaul of the fifth century had alike vigorous repre- 
sentatives in Theodoric the Gothic king and in 
Aetius the Roman patrician. In the character of 
the Roman champion there are some dark shades, 
but on Gaulish soil the}^ are hardly to be seen. His 
evil deeds, true and imaginary, belong to the tale of 
Italy and Africa, as his bloody end belongs to that 
of Italy. On our side of the Alps he is wholly the 

applied to the earlier Tlieodorics it takes various shapes. Sidonius 
uses several forms in verse (Pan. in Av. 320) ; the first Theodoric 
is Theudoris ; the second, in his prose portrait (Ep. i. 2), has his 
real name Theodoricus. Prosper and Idatius use the real name. 
In Jordanis (Get. 34, 44) the West-Gothic Theodorics are both Theo- 
doridus or Theodoritus ; the East-Goth is Theodoricus. So Isidore 
calls the first Theodoric Theodorides, which he afterwards changes 
to Theodericus and Teudericus. In Ep. i. 1 he plays on the likeness 
between the Greek and the Gothic names ; " leges Theodosianas 
calcans, Theodoricianasque proponens." The o in the received form 
Theodoric is most likely owing to the likeness to Theodorus. Pro- 
copios' form QevBepixos comes nearer to the Gothic. 

* In the Panegyric on Avitus, 505, Theodoric is made distinctly 
to call Alaric " noster avus." I find it hard to believe with Dahn 
(K. G. V. 71) that this simply means " prsedecessor." 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 271 

valiant soldier, the skilled diplomatist, who kept 
Aries for E-ome against the Goth and who won over 
the Goth to play his part in a strife that was more 
than Gothic, more than Roman, the great strife of 
the Catalaunian fields. 

The relations between Aetius and Theodoric are 
the relations of the leaders of two nations — at least 
of two powers — whose relations may be at any time 
either friendly or hostile, A far greater space, in 
the general estimate of Aetius, has been given to 
his alleged personal rivalry with the other eminent 
Roman captain of the time, that Count Boniface 
whom we have already seen baffling Atawulf himself 
on Gaulish soil *. The received tale is tempting, 
because it enables us to draw, as more than one 
writer has drawn with great skill, one of the most 
striking of contrasts f. The two men, each worthy to 
be called the last of the Romans, seem in a manner 
to exchange parts and characters. ' As the tale is 
commonly told, Boniface, so long the foremost cham- 
pion of Rome against barbarians of every race, comes 
at last to invite the Vandal into the Roman pro- 
vince that he guarded, while Aetius, half barbarian 
by early training, relying throughout his career on 
barbarian help, after leading Boniface into his old 
error, after, slaying him with his own hand, comes to 
be the guardian of Europe against the Hun, as he 
had once been the guardian of Gaul against the 
Goth. Now the received view of the long rivalry 
between Boniface and Aetius rests, as I am fully 

* See above, pp. 197, 198. 

t This contrast is well brought out by Hodgkin, i. 871-6. 



272 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

convinced, on no sure contemporary witness. But 
the story, and the way in which it has grown up, 
throws such an instructive light on the history of 
the fifth century that I have made it the subject of 
a full examination in another shape *. And after all, 
true or false, it is not the side of the career of Aetius 
which concerns us. The defender of Roman Gaul 
was not a native of Gaul, though it may be that 
he saw in early life events wrought on Gaulish 
soil which touched him very closely. Aetius, son of 
Gaudentius, born on the lower Danube in the Roman 
Scythia, was, in childhood and youth, a hostage, first 
with the Goth and then with the Hun. He learned 
the ways of the barbarians ; he gained power and 
influence among them; he married a wife of royal 
Gothic blood. His father, we are told, count and 
magister equitum, was slain, at some time not stated, 
in a military outbreak in Gaul. Whether Aetius 
was with him we know not, nor do we know whether 
it was before or after his father's death that he rose 
to a high place, on that side of the Empire in which 
he was born. Prsefect of Constantinople, he well 
nigh lost his life by an assassin's dagger. His 
recorded Western career begins among the confusions 
which followed the death of Honorius. In these he 
first plays a part in Italy and then in Gaul. I shall 
speak more fully of those revolutions and of the 
part which Aetius played in them in my special 
monograph on him and Boniface. Their main out- 
line concerns us here. On the death of Honorius, 
the Western Empire passed to John the chief notary, 

* See Appendix : Aetius and Boniface. 



vii.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 273 

who of course was in the eyes of the Theodosian 
family and their partisans looked on as a tyrant. 
But he seems to have been peaceably chosen at 
Kavenna, and to have been generally acknowledged 
in those parts of the West which still remained to 
the Empire. That he was acknowledged in Gaul is 
shown by clear incidental evidence. The Praetorian 
Prsefect of Gaul, that Exsuperantius of Poitiers of 
whose Armorican exploits we have already heard *, 
was slain at Aries in an outbreak of the soldiers (424), 
and it is pointedly added that John took no vengeance" 
for this outrage f. It has been inferred from the 
failure of John to punish this murder that he looked 
on the deed as done in his own service, that is 
doubtless that the cause of John was popular with 
the soldiers, while Exsuperantius asserted the claim 
of the Theodosian house |. It would be equally 
easy to infer that Exsuperantius was at least not an 
avowed enemy of John, that men looked to John to 
punish the offenders, but that he did not deem himself 
strong enough to bring on himself the enmity of the 
Gothic army. The point is that it was remarked 
that John did not punish a deed of blood done at 
Aries, a remark which could be made only of a man 
whose authority was fully acknowledged in Homan 
Gaul. In the East he was of course branded as an 

* See above, pp. 168-70. 

t This comes from the version of Prosper in the note to Roncalli, 
i. 653 ; " Hoc tempore Exuperantius Pictavus, Prsefectus Prsetorii 
Galliarum, in civitate Arelatensi militum seditione occisus est ; 
idque apud Joannem inultum fuit." 

; Fauriel, i. 176. 

T 



274 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vii. 

usurper at the court of Theodosius, and that Emperor 
took vigorous means to assert the claims of his 
house by sending an army into Italy to overthrow 
John and to establish the rule of his aunt Placidia 
and her young son Valentinian. Against this attack 
John availed himself of the help of Aetius, who was 
his partisan and high in his service. He, the man 
who knew how to handle barbarians, was sent to 
bring a Hunnish force to the support of his master. 
He went ; he came back with his savage allies. 
But by that time the forces of the East had won 
back Italy for the Theodosian house, and John had 
paid his forfeit in the amphitheatre of Aquileia. 
Aetius came with his Huns ; they even met the 
forces of Theodosius in arms. Many a man of that 
day would have used such a power to set up a 
tyranny of his own. Aetius did otherwise ; he sub- 
mitted to the Augusta and the young Augustus. 
His wonderful influence won over the barbarians to 
go back on payment of a sum of money, and he 
himself went into Gaul as the officer of Valentinian 
to maintain the cause of Rome, as represented by 
him and his mother, against all enemies. 

He found there work enough to do on behalf 
of his new sovereigns. The history of Gaul for 
some years is the history of the labours of Aetius 
to win back the lost dominions of Rome to the 
Empire. To read his story, whether in the dry 
prose of the annalists or in the high-flown verses 
of Sidonius, brings home to us in all fulness at once 
by how many enemies the Empire was attacked at 
the same time and what life there still was in the 



ai.] Theodonc the West-Goth and Aetius. 275 



Imperial pov^er, what magic in the Imperial name. 
It needed only a Stilicho or an Aetius, if not, as of 
old, to win fresh conquests, at least to guard the 
actual frontier and ever and anon to win back some 
part of what had been lost. We need not search 
too minutely into the nationality of the troops by 
whom the victories of Home were now won. It 
was doubtless by barbarian arms that Aetius struck 
down the barbarians ; but they were barbarians 
who were Roman by allegiance, who had been 
brought within the range of Homan influences, and 
whose adoption as the armed guards of the still 
Roman lands was one of the surest signs of Rome's 
abiding moral power. But the defender of Rome, 
at the head of the soldiers of Rome, has to be 
everywhere. One year in northern, another in 
southern Gaul, now altogether beyond the bounds 
of the province, carrying warfare hither and thither 
wherever an enemy of Rome's western dominion 
is to be found, now and then finding time to 
show himself in Italy for the maintenance of his 
own interests and the overthrow of private adver- 
saries — such was for years the busy life of the man 
who, somewhat unfairly perhaps to one or two not 
unworthy successors, men spoke of as the last of the 
Bomans. 

His first duty was to withstand the advance of 
the Teutonic power which had been so lately estab- 
lished on the Garonne and which was seeking to 
extend itself to the Rhone and beyond. The King 
of the West-Goths was laying siege to the city 
which had been so lately established as the capital 

T 2 



276 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, rvii. 

of a land which took in his own dominions"'*. It is 
another witness to the greatness of Aries in these 
times that we shall find it for a long while to come 

* It is not easy to put together a consistent account of tlie 
warfare between Aetius and Theodoric. Were there two wars 
or one before that which began in 436, the consulship of Isi- 
dorus and Senator % Prosper records an attack on Aries on the 
part of the Goths, who are driven back by Aetius, immediately 
after the fall of John and accession of Valentinian. His next 
entry after the proclamation of Valentinian as Augustus stands 
thus ; 

" Arelas nobile oppidum Galliarum a Gothis multa vi oppu- 
gnatum est, doo^ec imminente Aetio non impuniti discederent." 

Px'osper of Aquitaine^ is our best authority for Gaulish aflPairs ; 
he has nothing more to say about wars with the Goths till 
436, 

The Spanish Idatius is also a very valuable writer; but for 
Gaulish affairs we should, in case of contradiction, commonly 
prefer Prosper. We are not startled at his having nothing to 
say about the siege of Aries at the very beginning of Valentinian'a 
reign ; we notice that, in that Emperor's sixth year (430), he has 
a notice to which there is nothing answering in Prosper. This 
runs thus ; 

" Per Aetium comitem baud procul de Arelate quaedam Gothorum 
manus exstinguitur, Anaulfo optimate eorum capto." 

If this stood quite by itself, I think we should be inclined to 
look upon it as the same story as that recorded by Prosper, only 
moved to a wrong year. But it comes in a connexion which gives 
it unusual importance. In this year and the next Idatius is 
recording events in Spain, in which he himself was concerned and 
Aetius also ; he was also clearly narrowly watching the career of 
Aetius. Under the sixth year of Valentinian he has three entries. 
He first mentions a Suevian inroad into Gallsecia followed by 
a peace. Then comes the entry which I have just quoted, followed 
by the words, " Juthungi per eum similiter debellantur et Nori." 
The third records the slaughter of Felix at Eavenna, in which we 
learn from Prosper that Aetius had a hand, a subject on which 



Yii.] Theodoric the West-Got h and Aetius. 277 

the chief object of Gothic ambition. Now in what 
character did Theodoric march against Aries '\ We may 
take for granted that his choice of a time for action 

I have said more elsewhere [see Appendix]. Under the seventh 
year comes an entry of which I do not profess to understand 
every word, and which only incidentally concerns us, but which is 
incidentally most important ; 

" Aetius, dux utriusque militise, Noros edomat rebellantes. Rur- 
sum Suevi initam cum Gallsecis pacem libata sibi occasione 
conturbant. Ob quorum deprsedationem Idatius episcopus ad 
Aetium ducem, qui exjpeditionem agebat in Gallis, suscijpit lega- 
tionem. Yetto, qui de Gothis dolose ad Gallseciam venerat, sine 
aliquo efFectu rediit ad Gothos." 

One wishes to know more of this mission of Vetto, which clearly 
points to a disposition on the part of Theodoric to win again 
a Spanish position for the Goths ; but there seems to be nothing 
more to be found out about it. But the point for us is that 
Idatius is himself brought into personal relations with Aetius, and 
that on Gaulish soil. This at once accounts for the care with 
which he traces the career of Aetius in this year, as in the year 
before, and also in the year after — when he records the death of 
Boniface. And it clearly gives a value to his witness as to tbis 
second campaign of Aetius near Aries, which it otherwise might 
not have. We can hardly refuse to accept a Gaulish campaign of 
Aetius from the witness of a man who talked to Aetius, still 
campaigning in Gaul, in the year in which it is said to have 
happened. Under such circumstances, it is more likely that 
Prosper left something out than that Idatius got so utterly wrong 
in his date. That is, I think, we must on the whole accept the 
campaign near Aries in which Aetius took Anawulf as different from 
the earlier campaign in which Aetius delivered Aries just after the 
accession of Valentin ian. 

Now comes a question as to the date of the peace, the peace 
of which Sidonius speaks in his Panegyric of Avitus, by which 
Rome gave hostages to the Goth. What we know for certain 
is that there was a peace which the Goths broke in 436 — so 
witnesses Prosper — and which was in force in 431, when Gothic 



278 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vit. 

was determined by the disputed succession to the 
Empire ; but was his attack on the chief city of the 
Empire in Gaul meant as throwing off his allegiance 
to the Empire, or as taking this or that side in the 
struggle for its sovereignty? Atawulf and Wallia 
had always been the loyal officers of some Emperor, 
though in Atawulf's case it had sometimes been an 
Emperor of his own setting up. A later historian 
of the Goths seems to look on Theodoric as throwing 
off all obligations to Kome ; but this may come 
only of looking at things with the notions of later 
times, and Isidore seems to confound this siege with 
events two years later*. But if Theodoric marched 

fcederati served at tlie defence of Hippo. Granting that we have 
established two wars by Aries, one out of Prosper, the other out 
of Idatius, after which of them came the peace broken in 436 1 
The later date is surely the more likely. The immediate service of 
the Goths in Africa might well be one of its terms, and, if this 
were so, the giving of hostages on the side of the victorious Romans 
becomes more intelligible. 

In one of the fragments of Merobaudes' prose Panegyric on 
Aetius (p. 10), there is an account of a victory won by Aetius over 
Goths. The circumstances of the story, as the sudden attack, seem 
to agree very well with the first victory of 425, and I have there- 
fore ventured to make use of some of Merobaudes' details in 
describing it. 

* Isidore, in the Chronicon Gothorum, p. 716, has the following 
account ; 

" Theodorides .... regno Aquitanico non contentus, pacis 
Romanae foedus recusat ; municipia Romanorum vicina sedibus suis 
occupat. Arelas, nobilissimum Gallise oppidum, vi multa obsessum 
oppugnat, a cujus obsidione imminente virtute Aetii Romanse 
militise ducis non impunitus discedit." 

Some phrases here sound like improvements on Prosper; the 



viT.] Theodoric the Wesi-Goth and Aetius. 279 

on Aries in the character of a partisan of either 
claimant of the Empire, of which claimant was it ? 
It has been inferred that whatever he did was done, 
in name at least, on behalf of the legitimate sovereigns, 
that is, of Theodosius, Placidia, and Valentinian'^'". 
It is easy to guess, but it is hard to determine on 
points like these, where our evidence is so meagre 
and obscure. One might easily imagine that, when 
John was acknowledged as Emperor in Italy and 
Gaul, it might suit the purposes of the Grothic king 
to profess loyalty to the princes who had no foothold 
west of the Hadriatic ; but what we do know for 
certain is that the lieutenant of those princes dealt 
with him as an enemy. With whatever motives or 
objects, Theodoric laid siege to the noblest city of 
the Gauls, as one writer admiringly calls it. We 
gather some details from the panegyric of a devout 
admirer of Aetius to whom the tale was brought 
as the last piece of news from the West to one 
who was sojourning far away on the eastern side 
of Hadria beside the inland sea of Long Salona f. 

piece about the " muni cipia " is an actual quotation; but it is 
a quotation from the entry under 436. Isidore clearly rolled the 
events of that year and those of 425 together. 

* Dahn, K. G. v. 73 ; " Ergriff Theodorich die Waffen, wie es 
scheint, angeblich fiir den legitimen Kaiser, in Wahrheit aber im 
eigenen Interesse." So in his Urgeschichte, p. 357. 

t Merobaudes, p. 10 ; " Delatus ego in angusti litoris sinum, 
qua Salonas usque per anfractus terrse pronum pelagus inlabitur, 
nactus sum quemdam qui se tuis recentibus gestis interfuisse 
memoraret." Salona nowadays seems a strange place to go to for 
the last news from Aries; but the great saying of Atawulf at 
Narbonne came to us by way of Bethlehem. 



280 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. [Vii. 

The whole force of the Goths went forth with 
their king : from the camp before Aries they wan- 
dered hither and thither among the marshes and 
islands which surrounded the city of the waters, 
eager to gather spoil from every corner of the 
Koman land *. But the avenger was upon them. 
Aetius, at the last stage, as it would seem, of his 
march from Italy, found them busy in the work of 
plunder by one of the isolated hills which formed 
so marked a feature in the land which surrounds 
Aries to the north-east. Was it the famous hill of 
Montmajour, the rocky hill to be in after days 
crowned by a mighty monastery, a monastery and 
yet a fortress, over whose cloister rises conspicuous 
to all eyes, not the peaceful bell-tower of the church, 
but the stern keep of the abbatial castle \ Or was 
it the yet more rugged hill by its side, the hill of 
Cordes, with its mysterious monument of earlier 
days, the giants' chamber, not, as elsewhere, piled 
up of massy stones, but hewn, like lesser tombs, in 
the heart of the living rock % One or other of these 
hills then bore the name of the Mount of Nadders, 
and by its foot the admirers of Aetius were able 
to say, with some confusion of metaphors, that the 
poisons of the republic were overthrown!. The 

* Merobaudes, p. 10; " Gothorum, inquit, maniis universa cum 
rege exierat B,omana populatum. Hoc ut dux comperit — jam non 
expectavi ut diceret, progressus est, manum contulit ; neque enim 
lisec a te acta dubitabam." 

+ lb. ; " Qusesivi statim ubi, qualiter, quantosque fudisses. 
Tunc ille, ad montem, inquit, quern Colubrarium quasi prsescia 
vocavit antiquitas ; in eo enim nunc reipublicse venena prostrata 
sunt maxima." This Mount of Nadders near Aries reminds one of 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 281 

plunderers were attacked, driven away, and chased. 
Some of the Goths who stood firm had to yield to 
the assault of the Koman army. King Theodoric 
himself came with the rest of his force, seemingly 
his horse, to be struck with sudden horror as he 
found his horse's hoofs trampling on the bodies 
of his men*. At this stage our more detailed 
and picturesque narrative breaks oflp. We wish for 
some picture of the flight of Theodoric, of the entry 
of Aetius into the ransomed city. But we have 
evidence enough that the head of Gaul was saved. 
The towers of Constantine rising above the waters, 
the theatre of the Greek, the arena of the Roman, 
the basilica of the saint from Ephesus, were not 
as yet to pass into barbarian hands. Theodoric 
and Aetius had had their first meeting in arms; 
the Goth was driven back, and he and his host 
paid their penalty for their inroad on Roman 
lands f. 

This first undoubted Gaulish exploit of Aetius 
is placed immediately after the proclamation of Yalen- 
tinian as Emperor (425). The siege and deliverance 
of Aries took place in the same year as the fall of 

" Mons Eanarum," William of Malmesbury's name for Brent Knoll 
in Somerset. 

* Merobaudes, p. 10 ; " Hostium partem improvisus, ut solet, 
neci dedit, fusisque jpedituTn copiis quae plurimse erant ipse palantes 
turmas persecutus, stantes robore, fugientes alacritate compressit. 
Nee multo post rex ipse cum reliquis copiis suis adfuit, defixus 
horrore subito calcata prope cadavera." This reads as if Theodoric 
was on horseback. 

t See the words of Prosper, followed by Isidore, in note, 
pp. 276-8. 



282 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

John and the transfer of Aetius to the side of 
Yalentinian. Most likely he was sent straight from 
Bavenna to deliver Aries. It is hard to say what 
was the end of this war. The next event that 
we hear of, at Aries, not long after the dehverance 
of the city from Theodoric, was a disturbance which 
connects itself with several events both ecclesiastical 
and temporal. The year before the Gothic siege 
had seen the slaughter of a high military officer 
in the capital of Gaul; the year after it saw the 
slaughter of a bishop (426). Patroclus, Bishop of 
Aries, is a man of doubtful character. A special 
partisan and friend of Constantius, he made his way 
into the see in the year 412, in the room of his 
predecessor Eros or Heros. Heros, described as 
a holy man and a disciple of Saint Martin, is said 
to have been unjustly driven out to make way for 
Patroclus ; but the thing to be noticed is that the 
irregular deposition and election is not attributed to 
Constantius himself, but is said to have been the act 
of the people of Aries, who wished to win the favour 
of Constantius by the elevation of his friend *. 
Others speak more favourably of Patroclus and less 

* Prosper, 412 ; " Heros vir sanctus et beati Martini discipulus, 
cum Arelatensi oppido episcopus prsesideret, a populo ipsius civi- 
tatis, insons et nuUi insimulationi obnoxius, pulsus est, inqiie ejus 
locum Patroclus ordinatus, amicus et familiaris Constantii magistri 
militum, cujus per ipsum gratia quaerebatur. Quae res inter 
episcopos regionis illius magnarum discordiarum causa fuit." See 
Tillemont, vi. 186, 188. In "Prosper Tiro" (414) Patroclus is 
charged witb simony ; " Infami mercatu sacerdotia venditare 
ausus." 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 283 

favourably of Heros * ; in any case we can hardly 
avoid the suspicion that the different estimates of 
the sanctity of these bishops have a political origin, 
that the fault of Heros was to have been a partisan 
of Constantine, as he can hardly fail to have been 
the bishop by whom the tyrant was admitted to the 
priesthood in the vain hope of saving his life. 
What we are really concerned with here is the fact 
that Patroclus, now (426) acknowledged Bishop of 
Aries, was killed, seemingly in a brutal fashion, by 
a barbarian tribune, and that the deed was believed 
to have been done at the secret bidding of the 
magister militum Felix f. This Felix seems to have 
succeeded Castinus in his office, and his name appears 
constantly in the annals for some time to come. 
He was now the enemy of Boniface ; before long he 
became the enemy of Aetius, and in that character 
Aetius knew how to deal with him. But save this 
slaughter of the intruding bishop, the acts of Felix 
have little reference to Gaul. His relations with 
Aetius, and the singular way in which some of his 
acts seem to have been transferred to Aetius, I have 
dealt with elsewhere. 

A few years later (43 0-3 1) we hear of another victory 
won by Aetius over certain Goths in the neighbour- 
hood of Aries, in which Anawulf, one of their chief 

* Art. Heros in Diet. Christ. Biog. 

t Prosper, 426 ; " Patroclus Arelatensis episcopus a tribune 
quodam barbaro multis vulneribus laniatus occiditur, quod facinus 
ad occultam jussionem Felicis magistri militum referebatur." Felix 
was also charged with the death of a holy deacon named Titus 
at Rome. 



284 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [vii. 

men, was taken *. The war of which this was the 
chief event was, it would seem, ended by a formal 
peace between the Goths and the Empire. For 
shortly after that time we find the Goths in their 
old relation of Roman allies and acting as such in 
the wars of Africa. While Gothic volunteers swelled 
the forces of Gaiseric in the siege of Hippo, Gothic 
foederati helped in the defence of the city. Some 
of the terms of the peace seem to have been less 
favourable to the Empire than might have been 
looked for from these accounts of the victories of 
Aetius. But we hear of the peace only in incidental 
notices. A sober annalist, in recording the next 
war, implies that the present one had been ended 
by a treaty f. From our poet and rhetorician, our 
prsefect and bishop, we learn something of its details. 
One is the important fact that the Roman gave 
hostages to the Goth. We here get our first glimpse 
of a future Emperor, an Emperor less famous in the 
annals of the Empire than in the panegyric of his 
dutiful son-in-law. Yet Avitus of Auvergne played 
a considerable part in the affairs of his time, and he 
perhaps better deserved than most of his contem- 
poraries to have a pedigree devised for him which 
made him a patrician of Rome in an older sense 
than that in which that title was borne by Aetius |. 
Perhaps only immediate personal danger could 
justify one of such descent and for whom such 

* See the extract from Idatius in note, p. 276. 
+ Prosper, 436 ; " Gothi pacis placita perturbant." 
% That is, if we accept Mr. Hodgkin's explanation of the lines 
in the Panegyric on Avitus, 155-7. 



VII.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 285 

prospects were in store in crushing the skull of the 
nurse of Home with the biggest stone that his boyish 
arms could wield *. The wild boar, which he smote 
like another Alcides, the birds of the air, which, 
like later princes, he loved to subdue by the help 
of their trained fellows, would in Roman eyes be 
a more becoming prey f. His studies of Cicero 
enabled him, while yet a youth, to win the ear of 
Constantius, not yet Augustus, but already com- 
manding in Gaul, and to obtain a remission of taxes 
for his native Auvergne, then suffering from the 
cruelties of Agrsetius after the fall of Jovius and 
Sebastian \. 

* Sidonius tells the story in the Panegyric, 177. 

t His bodily exercises are recorded in 173. The wild hoar 
comes in 183-94. The lines on hawking (202) are curious; 
they have such a mediaeval sound ; yet hawking was not a new 
thiag; 

" Quid volucrum studium det quas natura rapaces 
In vulgus prope cognatum % Quis doctior isto 
Instituit varias per nubila jungere lites % 
Alite vincit aves, celerique per sethera plausu 
Hoc nulli melius pugnator militat unguis." 

\ His studies, specially of Cicero, come in 183-94 ; the mission 

to Constantius in 207 ; 

" Nee minus hsec inter, civilia jura secutus, 
Eligitur primus, juvenis, solus, mala fractse 
Alliget ut patriae, poscatque informe recidi 
Vectigal ; procerum turn forte potentior illic. 
Post etiam princeps, Constantius omnia praestat, 
Indole defixus tanta, et miratur in annis 
Parvis grande bonum, vel in ore precantis ephebi 
Verba senis." 

Sirmond in his note well points out that the reference must be 



288 Western Europe tn the Fifth Century. [Vii. 

He was now able to win equal favour in the 
eyes of the Gothic king. Of one of the hostages 
given to Theodoric we know the name ; it was 
the Greek name so easily confounded with his own ; 
its bearer was Theodorus, a kinsman of Avitus, 
and therefore doubtless a man of Auvergne *. It 
might even be inferred from some of the expressions 
of the poet that the land of Auvergne had been at 
some stage of the strife the scene of warfare, and 
had suffered severely from Gothic invasion. In 
any case, whether simply to visit Theodore in 
his captivity or to take steps for his release, Avitus 
came to seek him, doubtless in Gothic Toulouse. 
There, in the city from which all signs of Roman 
and Gothic rule have been swept away, must have 
been the hall of hina whom Sidonius speaks of as 
the king clothed with skins t. His daring in the 
cause of friendship and kindred gained him the King's 
good opinion and good will. Theodoric tried to win 
Avitus to his own service ; and he wondered and 
approved of the constancy of the new Fabricius 



to the doings in Auvergne recorded by Eenatus ; cp. Greg. Tur. 
ii. 9 (p. 76). 

* Sidonius, 215 ; 

"Variis incussa procellis 
Bellorum regi Getico tua Gallia pacis 
Pignora jussa dare est; inter quas nobilis obses, 
Tu, Theodore, venis." 
+ lb. 218 ; 

. . . . " Quern pro pietate propinqui 
Expetis in media pelliti principis aula 
Tutus, Avite, fide." 



VTi.] Theodoric the West-Goth and Aetius. 287 

who, keenly as he felt the duty of a friend, held 
the duty of a Roman yet dearer *. 

* Sidonius, 220 ; 

. . . . " Probat Mc jam Theudoris altum 
Exemplum officii ; res mira et digna relatu, 
Quod fueris blandus regi placuisse feroci. 
Hinc te paulatim prselibat sensibus imis, 
Atque animis : vult esse suum ; sed spernis amicum, 
Plus quam Eomanum gerere. Stupet ille repulsam, 
Et plus inde places. Eigidum sic, Pyrrbe, videbas 
Fabricium," &c. 



VIII. 

[CHLODOWIG THE FRANK.] 

It was a heathen conqueror who had swept away 
the last traces of independent Eoman dominion in 
Gaul. The unbaptized Chlodowig had displaced the 
Christian Syagrius as the master of Eoman Spissons 
and Paris. But the Frank stood in a special relation 
both to Rome and to Christianity. He w^as not the 
avowed enemy of either. We can never get clear of 
the dim likelihood that it was as a Roman officer 
warring with a tyrant that he overthrew the Roman 
king. We have the certainty that at a later time he 
was the friend of the Emperor, honoured at his hands 
with the highest of Roman honours. The conquest 
of the land which had been the last Gaulish Romania, 
the land which was to be the special Gaulish Francia, 
had been a simple conquest and no more. It had 
not been marked by havoc and desolation, by the 
ruin of cities, or by the driving out of the inhabitants 
of the land. Men and things took their chance 
in the course of actual warfare, things sacred and 
profane took their chance together. But the very 
story which sets before us Frankish warriors as 
plunderers of a church and dividers of its spoils also 



Chlodowig the Frank. 289 

sets before us the Frankish king as one whom a 
Christian bishop would freely approach, to whom 
he could make his prayer as a friend, and find it 
listened to in a friendly spirit. Chlodowig, like 
Childeric before him, may or may not have known 
anything of the special doctrines of Christianity; but 
they at least knew it and recognized it as the religion 
of Eome, as the creed and worship of Eoman neigh- 
bours and allies, in the new state of things, of Eoman 
subjects. ' To Chlodowig the Christian religion was 
part of the general Eoman life, along with the laws, 
customs, and language which went to make up that 
Eoman life. With no part of that Eoman life was 
he called on to interfere. The Frank went on living 
according to his law, and the Eoman was left to live 
according to his. We have no such picture of nor- 
thern Gaul under the heathen Chlodowig as we have 
of Italy under the Arian Theodoric ; but allowing for 
broad differences in the circumstances of the men and 
of the lands, the general relations of the Eoman and 
the Teuton must have been the same in each case. 
There was to be sure this special difference, that the 
presence and the rule of the heretic awakened 
a deeper grudge than the presence and rule of the 
heathen. It is the undying difference between the 
domestic traitor and the foreign enemy. The wor- 
shipper of Jupiter or Woden stood wholly outside 
the Church ; he had never rebelled against her. The 
Goth, cleaving to the teaching of his first apostle, 
strong in that national creed which he looked on as 
the Catholic faith*, had in truth rebelled just as 
* See the decree of the Arian Council of Toledo in 581 (J oh. 

U 



290 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 

little. But the orthodox Roman was not likely to 
make such a distinction ; to him the Arian Goth 
would seem one who had wilfully gone astray from 
the true fold; the heathen Frank was simply one 
who, more perhaps through his misfortune than his 
fault, had never entered it. The Catholics through- 
out Gaul looked on the still heathen Chlodowig as 
at least not their enemy, as, if not their friend, at 
least their impartial protector. He could not fail 
to become before long the enemy of the heretic, and 
in that character they were ready to welcome him. 
We are distinctly told that the Eoman subjects of 
the Goth sought for the Frank as their ruler, even 
while he still worshipped the gods of his fathers ■^^ 
But how much greater the gain if he who stood out- 
side the fold could be prevailed on to come within it. 
The conversion of the outside stranger was far more 
hopeful than the conversion of the domestic rebel. 
And a Catholic sovereign somewhere was sorely 
needed, when every Teutonic king was either heathen 
or heretic and when the Emperor himself was deemed 
to have strayed from the narrow path of orthodoxy. 
To win the Frankish king to Christianity, and that in 
its orthodox form, was the dearest wish of all Roman 
Gaul, and doubtless of every Catholic everywhere 

Bielar. ap. Roncalli, ii. 390); " dicens de Romana religione ad 
nostram Catholicamfidem venientes non debere baptizari." 

* So at least seems implied in Gregory, ii. 23; "cum jam terror 
Francorum resonaret in his partibus et omnes eos amore deside- 
rabili cuperent regnare, sanctus Aprunculus, Lingonicse civitatis 
episcopus, apud Burgundiones coepit haberi suspectus." Cf. Sid. 
Ap. ep. ix. 10. This is in the time of Childeric. 



VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 291 

whose thoughts were ever drawn to the state of 
things in the Gaulish lands. 

At no time do we more bitterly lament our lack of 
a contemporary historian than when we come to the 
memorable change by which the Frankish king, from 
an impartial protector from outside, became the eldest 
son of the Church, the one orthodox sovereign in 
Christendom, the armed missionary of the faith which 
he accepted against the heretical powers of Gaul. 
We have the narrative in Gregory of Tours, but it is 
not as yet Gregory telling of the deeds of his own 
day in which he himself took no small part, but 
Gregory putting together the songs and traditions in 
which events were preserved eighty years after they 
happened. As to the great historical event, the pro- 
fession of Christianity by Chlodowig, there is no kind 
of doubt ; if proof were needed beyond the universal 
consent of all later Frankish history, the letter in 
which Bishop Avitus of Yienne congratulates the new 
proselyte is of itself proof enough. Nor is there any 
reason to doubt the general outline of the common 
story in which the conversion of Chlodowig is con- 
nected with the influence of his Christian wife 
Chrotechild and with a victorious battle against the 
Alamans. It would be perfectly safe to say that 
Chlodowig, believing that he had found by experience 
that the God of his wife was stronger than the gods 
of his fathers and of his enemies, deemed it prudent 
to put himself on the side of the Power whom he 
deemed to have given him victory in the battle. So 
much as this mere verbal tradition alone might be 
trusted to hand down. All is natural ; all is pro- 

u 2 



292 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viir. 

bable ; there is nothing to contradict the main story ; 
there is nothing to suggest doubt about it. Some 
details may be legendary ; some are clearly mistakes ; 
but when we put the story to the severest critical 
test, the result is not so much to shake our faith in 
the story itself, as to make ns cast aside some of the 
less important inferences which have been made from 
it in modern times. How near Gregory's story comes 
to the truth we can best see when we compare it with 
the wild fictions of later writers. Still we could 
wish that we had the tale in full, told as Kemigius 
could have told it ; that is if Remigius had the 
same gift for telling the tale of Chlodowig which 
Gregory had for telling the tale of Chilperic and 
Guntchramn. 

The marriage of Chlodowig to a Christian wife and 
his conversion to her faith are two chapters in a tale 
which has a distinct unity. It is the first of a series 
which stretches over nine hundred years, as long in 
short as any European nation remained heathen. 
The Christian and the heathen are unequally yoked 
together; but the unbelieving husband is won to 
the faith, and the believing wife is credited with 
a greater or less share in the good work. The part 
which Chrotechild plays in the conversion of the 
Frank is played again by her great-granddaughter in 
Kent and by the Kentish queen's daughter in Nor- 
thumberland ; long after comes Dombrowka in Poland, 
and the line is ended when the Lithuanian Jagello, in 
his new shape as Christian Wladislaf, wins alike the 
Polish queen and the Polish crown. That such 



viiL] Chlodowig the Frank. 293 

a means of conversion could be brought to bear, in 
other words that the daughter of a Christian prince 
could, without any violent shock, without any 
marked feeling of utter incongruity, become the 
wife of a heathen prince, marks a state of things 
which has passed away. It passed away when the 
last European prince and people embraced Christen- 
dom ; in other words, Jagello was not only the last 
of the line, but there could not be another. The 
marriage of a heathen king with a Christian king's 
daughter could happen only when there was no very 
broad distinction between the manners, the culture, 
and the general position of Christian and heathen 
nations. In our age the idolater differs from the 
Christian, not only in religion and speech, but in 
every point of moral and physical difference which 
can keep men apart from each other. Black, red, or 
yellow, he is either a mere savage, or else, as in 
China, he is the representative of a culture which 
boasts itself to be older and deems itself to be higher 
than that of Europe, which at any rate keeps itself 
utterly distinct from that of Europe. The Mussulman, 
nearer in everything than the idolater, is parted at 
least as thoroughly by his very nearness. Christendom 
and Islam are more distinctly enemies, because more 
distinctly rivals, than has ever been the case between 
any other two religious systems. But in the ages 
of which we speak the Christian and the heathen 
were parted from one another by little besides their 
differences in religion and some immediate conse- 
quences of that difference. Christian and heathen 
belonged to one great family of nations ; they 



294 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 

were ofteD near akin in blood and speech ; their 
feelings, habits, traditions, were in many things the 
same ; the Christian Teuton, above all, had over the 
heathen Teuton no advantage save that of his 
Christianity itself and of that deeper picture of 
Roman culture which his Christianity implied. There 
was nothing shocking, nothing repulsive, about the 
heathen beyond the fact of his heathendom ; he was 
not an utter stranger, but an erring brother, a brother 
too whose error was the pardonable one of cleaving 
to those once common traditions which the Christian 
had cast aside. The same causes which, a few cen- 
turies later, made the missionary work of Christian 
Teutons among their heathen kinsfolk so immeasure- 
ably easier than the work of modern European 
missionaries has ever been among nations wholly 
strangers to Europe, made this particular form of 
conversion specially easy. When Chlodowig, already 
lord of a Roman land, sought for a bride in a Christian 
and princely house, there could have been nothing 
about him except his heathendom that could shock 
either her or her kinsfolk. The mere thought of 
such an alliance on his part showed, if not that he 
was inclined to accept the faith of his bride, at any 
rate that he had no hostile feelings towards it. 
As long therefore as any part of Europe clave to 
heathendom, this kind of marriage, with the religious 
and political consequences which were apt to follow 
from it, happened ever and anon. The process im- 
pressed men's minds ; a Christian wife must con- 
vert her heathen husband. Where history failed 
legend could supply its place ; Sira must have con- 



VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 295 

verted Chosroes, and a tale of the conversion of 
Chosroes grew up *. And we see a kind of shadow 
of the type of conversion which began with Chrote- 
child in the cases where the husband has to be won 
over, not from the worship of false gods, but from 
some form of Christianity which is deemed imperfect. 
Thus among the Lombards the Cathohc Theodelind 
is held to have won over the Arian Agilulf ; thus 
English Margaret — so at least the English chronicler 
thought — was needed to bring the household and 
kingdom of Scottish Malcolm to a fuller understanding 
of the right way f. But among all such tales, the 
tale with which we are now concerned, the tale of 
the wooing and wedding of Frankish Chlodowig and 
Burgundian Chrotechild, stands out as the first and 
the most famous. 

It is perhaps dull work, after tracing out the 
eifect of the marriage, the victory, and the conversion 
of Chlodowig on the general history of Gaul and the 
world, to turn to examine the exact geographical and 
political relations between the Franks and their 
Alamannian neighbours. They have been the subject 
of a good deal of research and discussion at the 
hands of modern scholars. That so it should be is 
not wonderful when we have the whole story in 
a fragmentary, and partly a legendary form. The 

* The story is told by Fredegar, Chron. 9, under the year 588, 
and by Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang. iv. 52, with a much more 
confused chronology. John of Bielar (Roncalli, ii. 398) mentions 
the supposed conversion of Chosroes under the year 590. The 
groundwork of the whole legend will be found in Evagrius, vi. 21. 

t See the English Chronicle, D. 1067, and Norman Conquest, iv, 
p. 510. 



296 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 

great tale which became the national epic of the 
Christian Franks looks at the war with the Alamans 
simply as the occasion of the conversion of the 
Frankish king. Its causes and details, the exact 
date and the exact place of the struggle, were 
matters of no importance. They might have formed 
the subject of a poem of their own ; as it was, they 
were lost in the greater tale of the conversion. In 
attempting to put together a narrative of the 
Alamannian war we must take the story as handed 
down to us, a story trustworthy in the main, and 
enlarge and illustrate it from our other sources. The 
main point in which the story as usually told might 
lead us astray would be if we were led to think that 
the victory of Chlodowig v/hich led to his conversion 
was at once followed by the complete submission of 
the whole nation of the Alamans to the Frankish 
power. On the other hand there can be little doubt 
that there were several wars between Franks and 
Alamans on the part both of Chlodowig and of 
other Frankish princes, and that two distinct cam- 
paigns and victories of Chlodowig have been rolled 
together in one. The battle in which Chlodowig 
first called on the God of his wife was formerly 
placed at Zulpich on the Lower Bhine, on the strength 
of a notice by which it appears that the Kipuarian 
King Sigeberht received a wound in a battle with 
the Alamans at that place *. But it is now gener- 
ally allowed that these two battles are quite distinct. 

* The whole story of the wars of the Franks and Alamans is 
discussed by Hans von Schubert, Die TJnterwerfung der Alamannen 



VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. -297 

We can only guess whether they were parts of 
a joint campaign on the part of the two Frankish 
kings, for the warfare of Sigeberht is recorded 
incidentally, without date or circumstance. But the 
place of battle, so far to the north, certainly looks 
like an invasion of the Ripuarian territory on the 
part of the Alamans. The site of Chlodowig's battle, 
on the other hand, without being exactly fixed, can 
be placed with reasonable confidence in a land far 
to the south. From another legend, which brings 
in Saint Vedast, afterwards Bishop of Arras, as an 
agent in the conversion of the Frank, it appears 
that the battle was fought near the E-hine at some 
point from which the Frankish army could be said 
to go back to Toul on their way to Bheims. This 
is wholly impossible for Ziilpich, and points to Chlo- 
dowig's battle as fought at some point between Toul 
and the Rhine, that is pretty certainly, in the 
Alamannian land of Elsass. The march of Chlodowig 
was made to the Bhine with the purpose of crossing 
it into the main Alamannian land beyond ; but he 
was met by the Alamannian army. The victory is 

unter den Franken, Strassburg, 1884. His views are accepted by 
Hodgkin, Italy and ber Invaders, vol. ii. 

Otber views are maintained by Jungbaus, Die Gescbicbte der 
frankiscben Konige Cbildericb und Cblodovicb, Gottingen, 1857 
(translated, witb some fresb notes, by G. Monod, Bibliotbeque de 
I'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, 37ine Fascicule, Paris, 1879). Tbia first 
point seems perfectly clear. Tbere is notbing in Gregory, ii. 30, 
to fix Cblodowig's battle to any particular place, nor any reason 
to infer tbat tbat was tbe battle referred to in tbe incidental 
reference in ii. 37 (" Sigebertus pugnans contra Alamannos per- 
cussus in geniculo claudicabat"). 



298 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii, 

won for the Frank by his prayer to the God of Chrote- 
child ; the Alamannian king and his people submit 
— the death of the king, usually placed at this stage, 
comes later — he marches back to Toul, and thence to 
E,heims, accompanied, according to this account, by 
Yedast, who confirms his faith on the road, at Vou- 
ziers on the Aisne, by the miracle of restoring 
a blind man to sight *. The miraculous story must 
share the fate, whatever that fate is ruled to be, of 
other miraculous stories ; but the geography of the 
story is probable and uncontradicted. The Alaman- 
nian territory stretched on both sides of the Rhine ; 
Chlodowig designed to carry the war into the lands 
beyond the river, but was met by the enemy on the 
western side. That this first war did not lead to 
a complete conquest is paralleled by both the Roman 
and the Burgundian campaigns of Chlodowig. Sub- 
mission, with some cession of territory, was the 

* The Life of Saint Vedast is printed in full by Schubert. In 
cc. 2, 3 we read how Chlodowig goes against the Alamans; "Quo cum 
venisset hac utroque acies, et nisi obviam hostem habuisset B,eni 
alveum trassire vellet, cumque ergo utrumque hostium chunei 
adstarent/' &c. Then follows the battle, the vow, the victory. Then 
" Chlodoves victor deinde Alamannos cum rege in dicionem coepit 
ovansque ad patriam festinus rediens ad Tullum oppidum venit." 
There he finds Vedast, " quern mox sibi itinere juncxit ; dum pariter 
pergerent, quadam die venerunt in pago Vongise ad locum qui 
dicitur Grandeponte juxta villam Eiguliac, super fluvium Axono " 
(on the river Aisne, in the department of Ardennes), where the 
miracle happens; thence they go to Hheims, and the baptism follows. 
The geography is qmte consistent. 

The writer of this Life, according to Schubert, was a contem- 
porary of Gregory, writing about 580. His forms of proper names 
have a philological value. 



VIII.] Chlodowig the Frank. 299 

natural result of a first success. The northern Ala- 
mannian land on the Main and ISTeckar seems now to 
have passed under Frankish rule, while the whole 
Alamannian nation accepted Frankish supremacy *. 

The second. Alamannian war of Chlodowig is no- 
where recorded ; but its historical character is abun- 
dantly proved by several passages in the despatches 
of Cassiodorus which refer to a war between Franks 
and Alamans, and to a settlement of Alamans under 
East-Gothic protection which chronology forbids us 
to refer to the war which led to Chlodowig's con- 
version f. A letter addressed to the Frankish king 

* This seems the general result ; but the exact boundaries are 
not of great importance for our subject. 

t The real point on which the whole question turns is a very subtle 
point of chronology. Cassiodorus could not have written any letter 
in the name of Theodoric while the war of 496 was still fresh. He 
was not in a position to write any such letter till after his father's 
appointment as praetorian prsefect in 500. (See Hodgkin, 
Letters of Cassiodorus, 12.) He then became Consiliarius to his 
father, and qusestor. This seems plain from the Anecdota Holderi, 
p. 4 ; " Juvenis adeo, dum patris Cassiodori patricii et prsefecti 
praetorii consiliarius fieret et laudes Theodorichi regis Gothorum 
facundissime recitasset ab eo qusestor est factus." Now it seems 
clear from the Anonymus Valesii that the elder Cassiodorus, though 
his name is not mentioned, was appointed prsefect during 
Theodoric's six months' stay at Eome ; " Ldberium prsefectum 
prsetorii quern fecerat in initio regni sui fecit patricium, et dedit 
ei successorem in administrationem prsefecturae." But the visit of 
Theodoric to Rome was, according to Cassiodorus' own Chronicle, 
in the consulship of Patricius and Hypatius ; that is in the year 
500 A.D. The letters written by Cassiodorus the younger in the 
king's name could therefore hardly begin till the year 501 or 502. 
It follows therefore that the letter in the Varise, ii. 41, cannot 
refer to the war of 496, as it refers to a war which was hardly 



300 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 

in the name of his friend and kinsman Theodoric the 
East-Goth. The language of the letter, if it is not 
to be taken as mere words of courtesy from one 
prince to another, would most naturally imply that 
the war had been provoked by a breach of faith on 
the part of the Alamans, which is most easily under- 
stood of a breach of the treaty by which the former 
war was ended *. Theodoric congratulates his 
brother-in-law on his victory, a victory which had 
carried with it the death of the Alamannian king and 
the slaughter and bondage of a large part of his 
people. For the rest he prays for mercy; he pleads 
the example of his own victories, and specially calls 
on Chlodowig to abstain from any hostile act to those 
of the vanquished who have sought shelter in his 
own dominions f. Other documents show that these 

over j that is to say, there must have been a second war between 
Franks and Alamans in 501 or 502. 

After long weighing of the arguments of Junghaus and Schubert, 
I had a good deal of difficulty in accepting a second and un- 
recorded war ; but it seems impossible to escape this series of 
chronological reasoning. 

* Cass. Var. ii. 41 ; " Gloriosa quidem vestrse virtutis affinitate 
gratulamur, quod gentem Francorum prisca cetate residem, feliciter 
in nova prselia concitastis, et Alamannicos populos, caesis fortio- 
ribus inclinatos, victrici dextra subdidistis. Sed quoniam semper 
in auctoribus perfidiee resecabilis videtur excessus, nee prima- 
riorum plectibilis culpa omnium debet esse vindicta, motus ve- 
stros in confessas reliquias temperate." These words, which could 
only have been written immediately after the victory, may not 
necessarily imply a breach of a treaty by the Alamans, but it looks 
most like it. The words in italics are equally wonderful in 496 
and in 501. 

t lb. ; " Jure gratise merentur evadere quos ad parentum 



Till.] Chlodowig 'the Frank. 301 

were not a mere handful of fugitives, but a consider- 
able part of the Alamannian nation which was now 
admitted to new settlements within the former 
Boman territory under the protection of the East- 
Gothic king, on whom the rights and duties of Boman 
sovereignty had fallen. In that character the Danube 
was his northern frontier, the frontier of Italy in its 
widest sense as a prsefecture *. In the lands, it 
would seem, between the Alps and the Danube, in 
parts of Hhsetia, Noricum, and the eastern lands of 
Helvetia, the Alamans found new seats as subjects 
and soldiers of the Gothic king f. So matters seem 
to have rested during the remainder of the days of 
the two great conquerors. In this, as in all other 

vestrorum defensionem respicitis confugisse. Estote illis remissi, 
qui nostris finibus coelantur exterriti." Parentes here takes in 
a brother-in-law. 

* Ennodius, Paneg. 15 (p. 212, ed. Vogel); "A te Alamannise 
generalitas intra Italise terminos sine detrimento Romanse pos- 
sessionis inclusa est, cui evenit habere regem postquam meruit 
perdidisse. Facta est Latiaris custos imperii semper nostrorum 
populatione grassata, cui feliciter cessit fugisse patriam suam ; 
nam sic adepta est soli nostri opulentiam. Adquisistis quae noverit 
ligonibus tellus adquiescere, quamvis nos contigerit damna nescire." 
There has been much speculation as to the exact force of " gene- 
ralitas " and other words in this passage. Without entering into 
details, it clearly implies a considerable body of settlers planted, 
one would think, both to till and to do garrison duty on a wasted 
frontier. The most instructive thing after all is the way in which 
the rule of Theodoric is assumed to be a Roman rule, and the 
whole extent of his dominions to be Italy. The prcefectura of 
Italy, we must not forget, reached to the Danube. 

t For the exact geographical discussion I must refer generally 
to Junghaus, Schubert, and others, whom it more immediately 
concerns. 



302 Western Europe in the Fifth Century, [viii. 

cases, it was the policy of Theodoric, at once first of 
Teutonic kings and representative of Boman power 
in the West, to hinder either the excessive aggran- 
dizement or the utter destruction of any one of the 
kingdoms and nations among which he bore himself 
as chief. It was his first call to interfere or to 
mediate among the powers of Gaul. The overthrow 
of Syagrius had happened before the march of 
Theodoric into Italy. Had it been otherwise, we 
might possibly have some clue that we have not now 
to the positions of both Frank and Roman in the 
warfare which wiped out the last traces of Homan 
power in northern Gaul. The first Alamannian war 
was fought in lands which had long passed away from 
the Empire which he claimed to represent, and it did 
not carry with it the destruction of the weaker side. 
There was therefore no obvious claim for the inter- 
ference of the master of Italy. It was otherwise 
with the second war. The Frank was now clearly 
seeking the destruction or utter subjugation of the 
Alamannian people. That in no way fell in with 
Theodoric's policy, even if the defeated people had 
not sought shelter within Theodoric's dominions. 
When they did so, honour and interest alike bade 
Mm to defend them against their enemy, and to 
secure his northern frontier by a garrison of willing 
defenders who would be bound to him by every tie 
of gratitude. He says in short to Chlodowig, as he 
did afterwards more emphatically in the case of the 
West-Goths ; " Thus far shalt thou come and no 
further." No prince in history ever held a position 
of greater dignity, or used it with greater moderation, 



Yiii.] Chlodowig the Frank. 303 

than Theodoric held his unique place as the common 
head and protector of Bomans and Teutons alike 
through all the lands of the West. The modern 
phrase of " balance of power " is hardly worthy of 
the calm loftiness with which he watched over the 
interests, not only of his own immediate subjects, but 
of all the nations which looked up to him as the 
first among them. This lofty supremacy of influ- 
ence Theodoric could exercise as none could before 
or after him. The E,oman Augustus stood apart 
from the barbarians, almost like a being of another 
nature ; he might be sometimes above them, some- 
times below; he might seem, in the words of 
Athanaric, like a god upon earth, or he might be, 
like Attains, a mere puppet in their hands, to be set 
up and put down at pleasure. But Theodoric was 
one of themselves, the worthiest of their own stock, 
the elder brother of the great family, while at the 
same time. Emperor in all but name, he joined to his 
Gothic kingship, his Teutonic princedom, the whole 
power and influence and lofty traditions of Borne. 
The position of Theodoric is nowhere better shown 
than in his dealings with Chlodowig; when he 
speaks and acts, even the mighty Frank has at least 
to pause. The mere warrior and conqueror halts at 
the bidding of one who, warrior and conqueror no 
less than himself, is also the ruler, the lawgiver, 
the judge between contending men and nations. The 
contrast between the two men is wonderful ; the 
contrast between their works is yet more so. Some 
instruments seem too noble for the work of this 
world. The position, the work, of Theodoric was 



304 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

personal; it died with him. Because he had done 
for a generation what no other man could do, his 
work was to pass away with his generation. Chlodo- 
wig, a conqueror of a meaner type, was to affect all 
later generations, to do a work which still abides and 
which shows no sign of perishing. If his creation 
has been spUt asunder, it lives none the less in each 
of two foreign and often hostile halves. Theodoric 
liyes in the books of Cassiodorus, in the memory of 
the happy breathing-space that he gave to his Italian 
realms. Chlodowig lives in all that has come after 
him, for good and for evil, in the long histories of 
Germany and France *. 

[Here this series of lectures ends, no more being written.] 



APPENDIX I. 



AETIUS AND BONIFACE. 

The ''groans of the Britons" are a familiar flourish of 
rhetoric, heard of doubtless by many who have never thought 
of the writing in which the words are found as one of those 
few precious rays of light which feebly pierce the darkness 
which covers the fall of Britain and the rise of England. 
I can remember looking on them in childish days in another 
light. It may be that I then looked on the groans of the 
Britons as the groans of men in whom I had a direct interest, 
as the groans of our forefathers, and not of them whom our 
forefathers supplanted. But I well remember being puzzled at 
the description of the person to whom those groans were sent. 
"Aetius thrice consul" in the middle of the fifth century 
seemed a strange and contradictory being. We were then 
taught that the Eoman commonwealth came to an end in the 
year 30 before Christ, as we were taught that the Eoman 
empire came to an end in the year 476 after Christ. In those 
days a Roman consul — other perhaps than the horse of Gains 
Caesar — after the one mystic year seemed as impossible as 
a Eoman emperor after the other mystic year. What would 
one have thought in those days if one had lighted on some 
of those passages in the Spanish annals of the sixth century 
which tell how the son of a West-Gothic king rebelled against 
his father and went over to the republic * ? Even at a far later 

* See John of Biclar in Roncalli, ii. 391, recording the revolt of 
Eormengild ; " Leonegildus rex, filio Hermenegildo ad rempublicam com- 
migrante." That means that he withdrew to the imperial province in 

X 



306 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

stage of study, it is not without a certain peculiar feeling, 

a slight survival of the days of ignorance, that we find respublica, 

sometimes respublica Romana, sometimes respublica as a word 

which needs no qualifying adjective, used to describe the 

recovered Western dominion of Justinian and his successors. 

And, if in the sixth century, how much more in the fifth ! 

If Eormengild could find a Eoman republic to flee to in Spain, 

much more might Aetius a hundred years earlier, when no 

barbarian king had as yet ruled in Eome or in Eavenna, stand 

forth on the soil of Gaul and Italy as consul of that republic for 

the third time. And in after times another thought might be 

suggested by the superscription of the famous groans. We 

have learned how much and how little the abiding use of the 

phrase respublica really means, how far apart that use is from 

the very modern controversial use both of the Latin word and 

of its English equivalent, the once familiar and honoured name 

of " commonwealth." We have learned how nearly nominal 

and formal the function of the Eoman consuls and the Eoman 

senate had become in ordinary times when the Eoman world 

was awakened by the Wandering of the Nations. And we 

have learned too how the very events of the Wandering of the 

Nations now and then put a new life into the old names and 

the old forms. In its greatest strait the Eoman senate could 

again put forth powers which were only sleeping, and could 

treat with Alaric as it had treated of old with Pyrrhos. So 

now and then a Eoman consul too could stand forth as one 

worthy to bear the title under which a Curius and a Scipio had 

beaten back the enemies of Eome. In one age the consul 

Stilicho saved Italy from the hosts of Eadagaisus ; in another 

age the consul Belisarius won back SicUy to the allegiance of 

Augustus. And so in the days between them, it was with 

a true feeling of the facts of the time, with a sound knowledge 

tlie south of Spain. The phrase is common enough, and goes on into the 
time of Fredegar and his continuators. It is perhaps strangest of all 
when Pippin makes Aistulf promise ''ut ulterius ad sedem apostolicam 
Eomanam et rempublicam nunquam accederet." Only by this time it is 
just possible that the faintest change of meaning may have been coming 
over the word. 



Appendix /.' 307 

of who it was who could really act to destroy or to deliver, that 
the groans of the Britons went up, in the year 446 after Christ, 
not to the august lords of all, to Theodosius and Yalentinian, 
but to the true king of men whom they rightly saw in Aetius, 
son of Gaudentius, in that year for the third time consul of the 
commonwealth of Eome. 

The groans of the Britons are likely to be a very early 
impression, and the tale that records them does not record any 
act of Aetius, but rather tells us the reasons why in the affairs 
of Britain he could not act. Truly it was not even for the man 
who then held his third consulship, and who lived to be 
murdered by an ungrateful sovereign in his fourth, to roll back 
the course of destiny and to decree that Britain should not 
change into England. He had worthier work to do. He had 
to be the foremost man on one of the foremost days in the 
history of the world. No man stands forth with a higher 
name than his in the most terrible of all the stages of the 
Eternal Question. Few days indeed in its long story can rise 
to the greatness of the tremendous issue of the day of the 
Catalaunian fields. Aetius thrice consul held the torch which 
had been passed on to him through many earlier hands from 
Gelon and Themistokles, and which he was to pass on through 
many later hands to KanarSs and to Skobeleff. The Britons 
groaned in vain when the consul of Eome already saw the 
approach of AttUa looming in the distance *. The Scot might 
overleap the barrier of Hadrian and Theodosius ; the Saxon 
might harry British and Gaulish coasts from his light keels ; 
Eoman, Goth, Frank, Burgundian, with the Saxon too and the 
Briton as lesser actors, might dispute the possession of every 
inch of Gaulish soil ; all was but as the strife of kites and 
crows compared with the battle of gods and giants that was 
coming. Or let us rather look on all disputes within the 
European world as a friendly strife, a slight practice in the art 
of giving and taking blows, in face of the great day when 



* The consulship of Aetius and Symmaehus, the third of Aetius, comes 
in 446, the year after Attila had succeeded to the sole monarchy of the 
Huns. 

X 2 



308 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

Eoman and Goth and Frank were to march forth side by side 
to do battle with the Hun. 

Of the man who was foremost in such a work as this we 
naturally seek to have some nearer knowledge. And we have 
no lack of materials for drawing a picture of Aetius ; the only 
drawback is that our materials are somewhat contradictory. 
He has a career in Gaul and he has a career out of Gaul, and 
the two, at least as his career out of Gaul is commonly told, 
may at first sight seem inconsistent. In Gaul he appears as 
the constant and successful champion of the Eoman power 
against barbarians of every race. He is the defender of Eoman 
cities, the winner back of lost Eoman provinces ; he is the 
conqueror of the rebellious or the invading Frank, the guardian 
of Eoman lands against the advancing Goth, till the moment 
when his diplomacy wins over Goth and Frank to give help 
against the common enemy. If his exploits are recorded in 
high-flown strains in the laureate song of Sidonius, they stand 
out no less clearly in the drier entries of the annalists. In 
Gaul, if we have to match him as a direct rival against any 
man, it will be against the West -Gothic king Theodoric. 
Between Theodoric and Aetius the relations are the honourable 
relations of the leaders of two nations which may be at any 
time either friends or enemies, and whom the skill of Aetius in 
ids later days changes from enemies into friends. Out of Gaul 
Aetius appears rather as the friend of the barbarians than as 
their enemy ; with the Hun above all he appears as united by 
the closest ties of friendship ; he brings his savage allies into 
Eoman lands to support the cause of that claimant of the 
Eoman throne to whose allegiance he has devoted himself. 
When that claimant is overthrown, he goes over with all speed 
to the cause of his successful rival ; the minister and general of 
John becomes at once the general of Valentinian in Gaul, the 
minister and adviser of Placidia at Eavenna. In this last 
character he is painted, no longer as the national rival of the 
Gothic king, but as the political and personal rival of the other 
great Eoman of his day. The Eoman world cannot contain 
Boniface and Aetius at once. Aetius uses every base art of 
intrigue to secure his own power at the imperial court by 



Appendix I. so9 

driving his rival into treason. His plots are found out ; the 
rivalry between the two leaders goes on, till it is ended by 
a fight, whether open battle or single combat, the result of 
which is, in one way or another, the death of Boniface. 
Aetius can now keep his place only by the help of the Hun ; 
but by the help of the Hun he does keep or regain it. Of this 
side of him we hardly hear again till after the great defeat 
of Attila. Then we get two opposite portraits ; in one he wins 
fresh laurels in Italy ; in another he counsels the emperor to 
flee to some other land. In any case he dies, three years after 
the Catalaunian battle, by the hand of his sovereign, stirred up 
by his eunuchs to suspicions of the great captain's loyalty. 

Of this non-Gaulish side of the life of Aetius, his conduct at 
the time of the accession of John at Eavenna, his fight with 
Boniface, and his own murder by Valentinian, are all facts, the 
main outlines of which rest on good authority. But the long 
and subtle intrigues of Aetius against Boniface are unknown 
to the contemporary writers and appear only in the next 
century. Aetius and Boniface were not always on the same 
side in politics ; they were opposed to one another on two 
great occasions, the disputed succession to the empire on the 
death of Honorius and the time when they actually met in 
arms. But there is nothing in the annalists which asserts or 
implies any personal quarrel between Aetius and Boniface 
earlier than this last strife. The enemies of Boniface at court, 
the men who plot against him, are first Castinus and then 
Felix. And of these, strangely enough, Felix meets with 
death by the hand, or at least by the bidding, of Aetius. In 
all this there is at least enough to make us stop and doubt 
whether the story of elaborate intrigue and rivalry on the part 
of Aetius against Boniface can be accepted. And the whole 
story seems worth sifting in detail. In the life and character 
of a man who plays such a part as that of Aetius the smallest 
point is worth examining. There is much too in the character 
and history of Boniface which clothes all that touches him with 
deep interest. The career of Aetius, as we have seen, has two 
sides, which may easily be looked at apart. His acts on this 
side of the Alps, his campaigns against the barbarians generally, 



310 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

his great career in Gaul, his slight connexion with Britain, are 
matters which touch me very deeply as part of the great 
connected history of Gaul and Britain. But they have little 
to do with his relations towards Boniface, little to do with his 
relations towards the imperial court or to the affairs of Italy. 
Even questions about his personal character are of no great 
importance from the Gaulish side. In Gaul he is simply a great 
warrior, the successful defender of the declining empire against 
all foes. Out of Gaul he is, for good or for evil, something 
more. I propose therefore, leaving his Gaulish career to be 
dealt with in another shape, to treat of the general history 
of the man himself in his other relations, and above all in his 
relation to his alleged rival Boniface. 

As the two are commonly painted — and the picture has in 
any case many touches of truth in it — the histories of Aetius 
and Boniface present a singular contrast *. Boniface, the true 
Koman, so long the special guardian of Rome against barbarians 
of every race, comes at last to invite barbarians into the pro- 
vince which he had so long guarded, while Aetius, half 
barbarian by birth and training, largely supported throughout 
his career by barbarian help, ends as the foremost defender of 
Europe against the Hun, as he had once been the defender 
of Roman Gaul against the Goth. In other words, the earlier 
day of the one, the later day of the other, is his brightest time. 
In this picture the barbarian relations of Aetius, the strictly 
Roman position of Boniface, undoubtedly come from the life. 
But whether we are to accept the contrast in its fulness 
depends on the question whether Boniface ever did forsake his 
Roman position — whether, in short, he did invite the Vandal 
into Africa, In any case there is a contrast between the two 
of another kind. There is a side of Boniface in which Aetius 
has no share. Boniface is an ecclesiastical as well as a military 
hero ; he is the friend and correspondent of Augustine. And 
his relations with the saint bring out many points of the man 
himself, and set before us the nature of the ecclesiastical influ- 
ences under which a layman of the highest rank and character 

* This reversed comparison is well brought out by Hodgkin, i. 455. 



Appendix 1. 311 

and personal importance could be brought in days when Aries 
and Carthage were decidedly more Christian than Rome. 

The picture of the special rivalry between the two men, of 
the special intrigues of Aetius against Boniface, seems to come 
wholly from Procopius' History of the Vandal War. It is not 
wonderful that a story told by a writer who in his own age 
ranks among the great masters of history should have won 
more acceptance than a story which has to be put together 
from scattered notices in this and that meagre annalist. Yet 
we must remember that Aetius and Boniface lived in the fifth 
century, while Procopius wrote in the sixth. Now it in no 
way takes away from the position of the narrator of the wars 
of Belisarius as one of the foremost among men who have 
written the history of their own day that he is not equally 
trustworthy in dealing with the history of times before his 
own. Procopius plainly had an inquiring spirit and a keen 
imagination. He is never an annalist. In the story of the 
wars he recorded events, many of which happened under his 
own eyes; he recorded them from his own personal know- 
ledge, or from the statements of those who had personal 
knowledge. But he was also well pleased to set down all that 
he could learn of earlier times or of distant countries. And 
about them his sources of knowledge were often less trust- 
worthy. What he was sometimes made to believe about distant 
lands we may judge by his famous account of our own land and 
people. Even in so wild a story as that of Brittia and Bretannia 
we feel that we are still dealing with a master. The reports 
that he heard were partly true ; when they were, Procopius 
could grasp the truth and use it, but, as the reports that he 
heard were partly false, he sets down much fable along with 
the truth. So with his accounts of earlier times ; he grasps 
with all the true historian's power the position and character 
of Theodoric, and sets it forth in a few memorable words. 
But he also sets down many stories for which the evidence is 
very weak ; in stories which are essentially true, he is often 
misinformed as to details. That is to say, he set down the 
received tale that he heard, which might be true or false. In 
other words, he was the soldier and statesman, keen to observe, 



312 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

cunning to weigh, the events of his own time ; he had not the 
scholar's instinct for a minute examination of the records of 
earlier times. One famous story which has been received 
chiefly on his authority, the stoiy of Valentinian and Petronius, 
has been lately examined and set aside by a master of the 
history of those times *. But the judgement had been pro- 
noiinced already by the chief master of all f. In declining to 
accept Procopius' account of Aetius except so far as it is 
otherwise confirmed, I only follow their examples. But I may 
add that this story of long- continued rivalry and intrigue is 
one which would naturally grow out of the enmity which 
undoubtedly did at last arise between Aetius and Boniface. 
We have a parallel case in our own history. Because Harold 
and Tostig were enemies in the last stage of their lives, legend 
has painted them as enemies from childhood. We cannot so 
easily show in the case of Aetius and Boniface as we can in 
the ease of Harold and Tostig, that till the last stage of all 
there was no enmity between them, but full friendship, nor 
can we in the same way show how the first enmity arose. 
The general picture which Procopius gives of the two mighty 
men, each of whom, if the other had not been, would have 
been rightly called the last of the Eomans, is natural and 
indeed truthful J. Under the circumstances the tale of abiding 
enmity easily grew up, and when it had once grown up, 
details, as ever, attached themselves. But they are details of 
the kind which are always most suspicious, tales of secret 
intrigues and treasons which could not be known to the world 
at large. The utmost that they can be admitted to prove is 

* Hodgkin, ii. 230. 

f Gibbon, cap. xxxv. vi. 135, ed. Milman ; "Procopius is a fabulous 
writer for the events which precede his own memory." Yet he adopts 
Procopius' story. 

X Bell. Vand. i. 3 (p. 322) ; Tovtoj rh di/Spe Sia<p6pa) fuv rd. ttoXitiko. eye- 
viad-qvj is ToaovTov b\ ixi'yaKoxpvxJ.a^ re Kal rrjs d\\r]s dper^s TjKirrjv Siffre, et 
Tis avToTv eKarepov dvSpa 'Fcofiaiwv varaTOV eiiroi, ovk dv d/jApTOf ovrco Trp/ 
'Pupiaicuy dpeTT)v ^vixTraaav Is tovtoj tui dvSpe diTOKtKpiaBai TervxrjKf. This 
illustrates the different uses of the word 'Pcopaioi by Procopius. Aetius 
and Boniface are the last of ol irdXai 'Pco/xaioi, a class different from both 
the local and the oecumenical 'Pwjxaioi of his own time. 



Appendix I. 3i3 

a general impression that Aetius was a man capable of a 
subtle plot. And that we can hardly take upon ourselves to 
deny. 

My present object is, holding the account of Procopius, as it 
stands, to be legend of the sixth century and not trustworthy 
history of the fifth, to try to recover the true story as it raay 
be put together from the annalists, the writings of Saint 
Augustine, and other more trustworthy authorities. In this 
work I have found very little help from earlier writers. The 
received story seems to be taken for granted by English 
writers, almost without glancing at the other. Gribbon, well 
as he knew the slight value of the evidence of Procopius in 
such a case, not only accepts the story, but hardly notices the 
evidence of the annalists at all *. It is different with foreign 
writers. From Kuinartt and Tillemont to ''the last German 
book," which, as far as I know, is that of Dr. Albert Gulden- 
penning t, I have nothing to complain of in the way of neglect 
of the authors on whom I have to ground my story. The 
excellent Tillemont, as ever in both his works §, never passes 
by a fact, never misses a reference. The whole materials, or 
the way to them, are open before us in his pages, but it is not 
lacking in respect to our venerable guide to say that they are 
not dealt with in a critical spirit. And I cannot say that 
modern German writers have greatly advanced on the old 
French ecclesiastical writers. All that I have seen who take 
any notice of the matter seem to think, with Tillemont, that 
they are bound to believe both Procopius and the annalists, 
and to force the two into some kind of agreement. I have not 
picked up very much from writers like Dahn || and Wieters- 
heim ^, who come to the story casually as part of something 

* Cap. xxiii. vol. vi. 8 et seqq., ed. Milman. 

t Historia Persecutionis Vandalicse. Paris, 1694. 

J Geschiehte des ostromischen Eeiches unter den Kaisern Arcadius 
und Theodosius II. Von Dr. Albert Griildenpenning. Halle, 1885. 

§ Both .the Histoire des Empereurs, vol. vi. Paris, 1738, and the 
M6moires pour servir a I'Histoire Ecclesiastique des six premiers sifecles, 
vol. xiii. (that devoted to Saint Augustine). Paris, 1710. 

II Konige der Germanen, v. 74. 

^ Geschiehte der VOlkerwanderung, Band iv. 188, 189. 



314 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

much longer. A short monograph by Sievers * has helped me 
to one or two points and references, and the slight mention of 
the matter by Giildenpenning reveals to me the existence of 
a German writer, whose book I have not seen — it is not to be 
found in the Bodleian — but who, I suspect, may to some 
extent have forestalled me. His name is Hansen, and he 
published a discourse on Aetius at Doi-pat in 1846 f. It is 
always hard to say anything which some German scholar has 
not said before one ; but if it should turn out that Dr. Hansen 
and I have, at forty years' interval, come independently to the 
same results, there will be nothing for either to complain of. 

To compare then our two men, we know much more of the 
early life of Aetius than we do of that of Boniface, but Boniface 
is the first to appear as a direct actor in history. In the war 
with Ataulf in Gaul, the war in which Constantius holds the 
first place on the Eoman side, Boniface appears as the hero of 
a single exploit, and as the object of the highest praise from 
one of our best authorities for the time. If the narrative of 
Olympiodoros were less fragmentary, we might better know 
how it came about that, when Ataulf was besieging Massalia 
in the year 412, it was Boniface, the noble Boniface, who 
came to its defence, who with his own hand smote the Gothic 
king well nigh to death, who made him withdraw to his camp 
and raise the siege, and remained himself to receive the thanks 
and praise of the rescued city %. This exploit stands by itself ; 
ten years later we hear of him again in a character which more 
directly connects itself with our present subject. In 422 an 
expedition is fitting out in Italy against the Vandals in Spain, 
of which Castinus, the consul of two years later, is the com- 
mander. We read in somewhat dark language how Castinus, 



* Studien zur Gesciiichte der romischen Kaiser. Berlin, 1870, p. 454 
et al. 

•|- Giildenpenning, 280. 

% Olymp. 456. Ataulf besieges Massalia, ivda irXrjyels, 'Bovr](paTiov rod 
yevvaioTCLTov l3a\6vTos, kcu fioXis tuv davaiov SiacpvywVj els rds oiicdas vnexdopriai 
ffKTjvaSj rj]v iroXiv kv evOvniq Xnrwf/, Kot Si' luaivoji' koX ev(pr]nias iroiovfj.tviji' 
Bovr](pa.Tiov. Olympiodoros speaks with special admiration of Boniface. 



Appendix I. sis 

by misconduct of some kind, by unreasonable and wrongful 
orders, hindered Boniface, the man so renowned for warlike 
skill, from taking a share in the enterprise, how Boniface 
refused to follow such a leader, one so proud and quarrelsome, 
how he suddenly sailed from Portus to Africa, and how this 
dispute between the generals was the beginning of great evils 
to the commonwealth *. Another annalist tells us of the 
failure of Castinus in his Spanish campaign ; he says nothing 
directly of any relations between Castinus and Boniface, but 
a few significant words follow, the force of which can hardly 
be given except in the original — "Bonifacius palatium deserens 
Africam invadit f." This last word is emphatic and notable ; it 
is then, and long after J, a kind of technical term for unjust or 
unlawful occupation of anything, from a crown downwards. 
It seems plain that Boniface did not go on the enterprise on 
which we must suppose that Valentinian or Placidius had sent 
him, that he left Eavenna and Italy in anger, and, if the entry 
stood by itself, we should be tempted to infer that he seized on 
Africa as tyrant, that he began in short the same part that 
Constantino played a few years before in Britain, Gaul, and 
Spain. His conduct directly after shows that this can hardly 
be ; but the words of both annalists read as if he took posses- 
sion of the government of Africa when the imperial orders 
would have sent him elsewhere. We are left to make out 
from these dark hints whether Boniface was already in com- 
mand in Africa, and was summoned thence to Eavenna to 
take part in the imperial counsels and in the Spanish expedi- 
tion, or whether, according, as we have seen, to the words of 

* Prosper ; " Honorio XIII et Theodosio X Coss. Hoc tempore exer- 
citus ad Hispanias contra Vandalos missus est, cui Castinus dux fuit, qui 
Bonifacium yirum bellicis artibus praeclarum, inepto et injurioso imperio 
ab expeditionis suae societate avertit. Nam ille periculosum sibi atque 
indignum ratus eum sequi quern discordem superbientemque expertus 
esset, celeriter se ad portum Urbis, atque inde ad Africam proripuit, idque 
reipublicae multorum laborum initium fuit." 

f Idatius, xxvii. Honorii, a. d. 421. 

J I need not say that "invadere," "invasio,"are among the commonest 
Domesday phrases for unlawful occupation of every kind. So "regnum 
invasit " is the set Norman phrase for the accession of Harold. 



316 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

one chronicler, lie in tlie strict sense seized on Africa. The 
former explanation fits in better with his later conduct ; but 
the use of so strong a word as invadit must not be forgotten. 
It is at least hardly consistent with the picture which some 
draw of Boniface as a model of unswerving loyalty. 

One thing is clear, namely that, at whatever time and by 
whatever means Boniface obtained the chief command in 
Africa, he won the highest reputation by his conduct there, 
as he had already done at some time when he was in the same 
land in an inferior military rank. As a simple tribune, in 
command of a few allied troops, he had, so his correspondent 
Saint Augustine witnesses, successfully beaten back the in- 
vasions of the barbarians*. Olympiodoros paints his picture 
with glowing enthusiasm. Boniface is a hero, foremost in 
many strifes with many barbarians ; ready alike to act with 
few, with many, or with his own single arm, he had cleared 
Africa of many enemies of various races f. He loved 
right and hated greediness ; the same tale is told of him 
which is told of Sultan Mahmoud ; a soldier of his army 
had taken possession of the house and wife of a country- 
man ; the injured man makes his moan to Boniface ; the 
avenger speeds by night to the farm seventy stadia off, and 
is able the next day to give the head of the adulterer to his 
suppliant J. The state of things in the African province must 
have needed reform, when wrong could be punished only in 
this sultan-like fashion ; still it was something to have a general 
who was ready to protect the provincial against the soldier in 
any way. For all this picture of Boniface we have no date § ; 

* Aug. Ep. ccxx. [70], ad Bon.; "Bonifacius . . . tribiinus cum paucis 
foederatis omnes ipsas gentes [Afros barbaros] expugnando et terrendo 
pacaverat." 

')' Olymp. 468 ; Bovrjepanos avfip ^v fipoiiKos leal Kara iroWaiv ttoWcikis 
Pap^apcov ■^piarevev, dWore fiev aiiv oXiyois kwepxopifvos, aAXore Se aal avv 
■nXeloaiv, hvLOTe 5e koX fiovojxaxSiv, Kal aTrXSJs fineiv, navTi Tponw iroWSiv 
Pap^dpoov Kal Sia(p6pajy lOvSiv amjWa^e ttjv ^Acppiicfjv, -qv Se koX SiKaioavviji 
tpaajfji Kol xpr] ixdrojv Kpiirrwv. J lb. 

§ Tillemont (Mem. Eccl. xiii. 712) fixes tbese early deeds of Boniface to 
about the year 417. He certainly had a great military reputation as early 
as 422. 



Appendix I. 3i7 

as a time came when his administration in Africa ceased to 
deserve this unqualified praise, we may conceive that this his 
most brilliant time came before, or at least did not last long 
after, the next time when we hear of any action of his that 
can be assigned to any definite consulship. This comes in 424, 
when we find Boniface in Africa, resisting the claims of John 
to the Western throne. In the absence of any direct hint that 
he was seeking the tyranny for himself, we must suppose that 
he was avowedly supporting the rights of the Theodosian 
house ; yet the language of our one authority is very remark- 
able. Its tone is more favourable to John than to Boniface, 
and Boniface's possession of Africa is again marked by a word 
which might suggest doubts as to the full legitimacy of his 
position *. 

We are now landed in a series of events in which Boniface, 
Castinus, and Aetius all take their share. But with regard to 
Aetius this time is a more marked epoch than it is with regard 
to either of the others. Boniface and Castinus have ah-eady 
appeared in Western annals ; this is the first time that they 
mention Aetius. In truth it is now that, at any rate in the 
West, liis strictly historic action begins ; we may therefore 
now put together such an account of his career up to this point 
as many, though scattered, notices enable us to do. Aetius 
was the son of Gaudentius f, a chief man in the Eoman 
province of Scythia, the modern Dobrutscha, at the mouth of 
the Danube. His mother, whose name is not given, was of 
Italian birth, wealthy, and sprung of a noble stock. The 
name of their son might point to Greek tastes in one or the 
other parent ; one almost wonders that no one seems to have 
played on a name so fitted for the chieftain who bore the 

* Prosper ; " Castino et Victore Coss. Theodosius Valentinianum 
amitae suse filium Csesarem facifc, et cum Augusta matre sua ad recipien- 
dum occidentale m.ittit imperium, quo tempore Joannes, dum Africam, 
quam Bonifacius obtinebat, bello reposcit, ad defensionem. sui infirmior 
factus est." 

t Renatus Frigeridus ap. Greg. Tur. ii. 8 ; " Gaudentius pater, Scyciae 
provintise primoris loci . . . mater Itala, nobilis ac locuples foemina." 
I suppose that, by putting this notice and that of Jordanis together, we 
get to the statement in the text. " Itala " can hardly be a proper name. 



318 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

eagles of the Western Eome to the last and among the greatest 
of her victories. The son of Gaudentius and his Eoman wife 
was born at Dorostonon on the Danube, the strong town 
famous in later wars, in one age as Dorystolon, in another as 
Silistria. Aetius was thus a native of the lands watered by 
the great Illyrian river, but he was born too far down its 
course to rank as a countryman of the great Illyrian emperors 
of an earlier time*. We are able to trace Gaudentius as 
holding a high command in Africa, and as playing the part 
of a zealous Christian by helping in the destruction of pagan 
temples in that province f. And his importance is shown by 
the way in which his son, in childhood and youth, seems to be 
specially chosen as a hostage in actions between the emperor 
and the barbaric powers. He was for three years a hostage 
with Alaric ; at a later time, it would seem, the Gothic king 
again asked for him in that character, but was refused by 
Honorius. At another time he was a hostage with the Huns +. 
In these sojourns among strangers, he learned the ways of 
those among whom he dwelt ; he gained a strong personal 
influence over them ; he learned alike how to overcome them 

* Jordanis, Get. 34; "Aetius patricius . . . fortissimorum Mcesium 
stirpe progenitus in Dorostorena civitate a patre Gaudentio, labores 
bellicos tolerans, rei publicae Eomanae singulariter natus, qui superbam 
Suavorum Francorumque [he does not add 'Gotborum'] barbariem im- 
mensis caedibus servire Komano imperio coegisset." The name of the 
place takes endless forms ; as Dorystolon it was famous in the tenth 
century and as Silistria in the nineteenth, in two opposite ways. 

-t" In Cod. Theod. xi. 17, 3, we find "Gaudentius vir clarissimus comes 
Africse." When we remember how the father of Paulinus of Pella was 
moved about, there is nothing wonderful in finding the same man em- 
ployed in all parts of the world. 

Augustine (Civ. Dei, xviii. 54, 1) records the fact, and dates it minutely ; 
" Consule Manlio Theodoro (a.d. 399) ... in civitate notissima et eminen- 
tissima Carthagine Africae Gaudentius et Jovius comites imperatoris 
Honorii, quarto decimo Kalendas Aprilis falsorum deorum templa ever- 
terunt et simulacra fregerunt." This would surely be too much for one 
day's work ; perhaps the date only marks the beginning. 

% Renatus ap. Greg. Tur. ii. 8; "Aetius a puero praetorianus, tribus 
annis Alarici obsessus (al. obses), dehinc Chunorum." In Zosimos, vi. 36, 
Alaric asks Xa^dv opi-qpovs 'Airioy nal 'lacrova, tw filv 'lo^iov yivo/xevov TraiSa, 
Tov 5€ VavbevTiov. Honorius refuses. This seems (Tillemont, vi. 180~) to 
come between the two times when he was hostage. 



Appendix I. 319 

as enemies of the empire and how to make use of them in the 
internal politics of the empire. He had a wife of whom we 
hear much, though her name is not recorded, and two sons, 
Carpilio and Gaudentius, of whom Carpilio was, like his father, 
a hostage with the Huns *. Graudentius and his nameless 
mother connect themselves more directly with the thread of 
the story. In one account, as Gaudentius is the grandson of 
an elder Gaudentius, so is CarpUio the grandson of an elder 
Carpilio. That is, the wife of Aetius was the daughter of 
Carpilio f- It is hard to reconcile the bit of prose which helps 
us to this name, which can hardly be the name of a Goth, with 
the high-flowing verses of two poets in which the wife of 
Aetius appears as the daughter of Gothic kings and heroes, as 
grudging that she is herself shut out from her ancestral king- 
ship, and as striving to make up for the loss by raising her son 
Gaudentius to the rank of a Eoman Augustus J. It is hard 
to see the fierce and domineering woman of this picture in 
another scene where the wife of Aetius is painted as a saintly 
matron whose prayers have such power with the saints that 

* Priscus, 179 ; Cassiod. Var. i. 4. 
f Aetius is "Carpilionis gener" in Renatus. 

% " Schwerlich gehorte des Aetius Gattin, allerdings eine gothische Fiir- 
stentochter, dem Hause des Theoderich an," says Dahn, K. Gr. v. 74. The 
elder Carpilio was hardly a G-othic prince ; yet in Merobaudes' poem on 
the birthday of one of the sons (iv. 15), his daughter is thus brought in ; 
"Adsit cum socio parente conjunx, 
Conjunx non levibus canenda Musis, 
Heroum suboles, propago regum, 
Cujus gloria feminam superstat." 
This "livida conjux" of Aetius plays a wonderful part in Sidonius' 
Panegyric on Majorian (126-274), pouring forth hexameters boiling over 
with Greek legendary references enough to fill a Classical Dictionary. 
Her name is not given, but she clearly claims a kingly Gothic descent. 
The most important passage is 203-6 ; 

"Quid faciam infelix? gnato quae regna parabo, 
Exclusa sceptris Geticis, respublica si me 
Prseterit, et parvus super hoc Gaudentius hujus 
Calcatur fatis?" 
Hujus = Majoriani. Gaudentius, called after the grandfather on the 
father's side, would actually be the elder son. How are we to reconcile 
the two poets with the prose writer ? If a Goth could be called Carpilio, 
there would be no difSculty. 



320 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

Heaven can never refuse victory to her husband *. These 
stories, to one at least of which we shall come again, belong 
to the later years of the life of Aetius ; we are now concerned 
with his earlier deeds. It is possible that, far away as his 
birthplace was from both Gaul and Africa, his connexion both 
with the land which was to be the special scene of his glory 
and with the land whose destiny he is said to have ruled from 
a distance began early. We have seen the father of Aetius in 
Africa ; one mention of himself tells us that Gaudentius, count 
and magister militum, was slain, at some time not stated, in 
a military outbreak in Gaul f. We should have been glad of 
a date ; but the first mention of Aetius in any recorded year 
sets him before us in quite another quarter, but in one where 
one might more naturally look for a notice of the Eoman 
Scythia than either in Africa or in Gavd. Born as he was east 
of Hadria, we first hear of Aetius in his own peninsula as 
prsefect of Constantinople in the consulship of Maximus and 
Plintha. And he left a name behind him in the Eastern 
Kome, for two years later the cistern of Aetius was built J. 
A tale is told how the prsefect Aetius hardly escaped death 
from a murderous dagger under circumstances which remind 
us of some of the bloody scenes of Frankish history in the next 
century. The story runs that, on one Sunday, as the prsefect 
was going in state to the great church, the old Saint Sophia, 
an old man named Kyriakos — could the name be suggested by 
the day ? — pretending to present a petition, struck at him with 
his hidden weapon, but prevailed no further than to rend his 
official garments, his Eoruan toga and pcenula §. This Eastern 

* See the story in Greg. Tur. ii. 7- Aetius was fated to die, but she 
wrestled with Saint Peter and overcame fate. One thinks of Apollo and 
the Moirai on behalf of Croesus. 

"t* This is in the chronicle known (somewhat strangely) as Prosper Tiro, 
that which looks so carefully after British affairs. In recording the 
reign of the tyrant John, it runs; "Aetius, Gaudentii comitis [he is 
magister equitum in Kenatus] a militibus in Galliis occisi filius, cum 
Chunnis Joanni opem laturus Italiam ingreditur." 

J Marcellinus, 421; " Cisterna Aetii constructa est." See Codinus^ 
p. 29 ; Banduri Const. Christ. 80. 

§ See Gothofred's Chronology of the Theodosian Code, i. clxv. The 



Appendix I S2i 

je of the life of Aetius seems to be overlooked by all 
modern writers save one or two who somewhat lightly assume 
that an Aetius at Constantinople must be a different person 
from the Aetius of Kavenna, Aries, and Eome *. It is hard to 
see why, in an age when men were moved so freely over all 
parts of the Eoman world, and in the case of a man whose 
birth and parentage connected him first of all with the East. 
We know not whether the prsefectship of Aetius at Con- 
stantinople came before or after his father's murder in Gaul. 
Four years later we find him in Italy, as a chief supporter and 
ofi&cer of the ruler who had supplanted the Theodosian house 
in the West. 

The action of Aetius at this time comes from the best 
authorities that we have, and one of them takes the oppor- 
tunity to paint his portrait at length. The picture is to be 
found in one of those precious fragments of writers older than 
his own day which have been preserved to us by Gregory of 
Auvergne and Tours. Well shaped, of middle height, with 
a frame, as it is put, neither weak nor burthensome, active in 
mind, strong in every limb, skilled in every exercise of war, 
cunning to guide the horse, to use alike the arrow and the 
javelin, undaunted in danger, bearing up under hunger, thirst, 
and watching — to Frigeridus at least he seemed no less ad- 
mirable in peace than in war. For he was moreover one who 
sought what was just and whom no seducer could beguile from 
his just purpose ; he was free from the lust of gain, and even, 
according to the teaching of the new creed of Eome, patient 
under wrong f. So he seemed to Gaulish admirers, who appear 

consuls are Monaxius and Plintha. In their consulship the Paschal 
Chronicle (i. 574) places the attempt on Aetius ; Im tovtuv rSiv vwaTcov 
rifikpa KvpiaK^ elcrtXOSvTOs 'Aertou Inapxov TroXewy ^era rov cr;^97//aTos Iv rfi 
fj.eyd\Ti ktcKKTjaia fiTjvl nepiTicp irpo ^' KaKavhwv /xapTiaiv em rai €v^dfj.fvov aiirov 
dweXOeiv KXrjOkvra ev tui iraXaTiw, Kvpiaitos ris jepaiv ^a\wv /xaxo-ipav f^eydXijv 
els x^-P^V^j diaavel Xl^eWov avrSj Trpoa<pepaiv, eKpovaev avTw Kara rov Sf^iov 
fiipovs Tov aTTjOovs, uare to -nevoKiov avrov Kal rr}V royav rpTjOjjvat. One is 
reminded of the slaying of Caesar, also of Ritchie Moniplies presenting his 
"sifflication " to James Sixth and First. 

* So Sievers (p. 456) half hints that the praefect of Constantinople was 
not our Aetius. But why ? 

t Ken. Frig.; "Medii corporis, virilis habitudinis, decenter formatus, 

Y 



322 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

not to have looked on his conduct at this time as blameworthy. 
The long and feeble reign of Honorius was drawing to its end, 
when his last caprice of all, the caprice of hatred following on 
extravagant fondness, sent away his sister Placidia, now the 
widow of her Eoman and imperial husband, with her son, the 
nohilissimits* Valentinian, to seek shelter at Constantinople 
with her nephew Theodosius. Their absence left the Theo- 
dosian house without a representative in Italy. The Western 
throne was open to any adventurer, and it was seized, not by 
any military chief, but by the civilian John, chief of the 
notaries. His accession or election seems to have been peaceful 
and popular, and our only personal portrait of him, drawn to 
be sure at a later time, is singularly favourable f. But some 
charged him with Arianism, and his successful rivals in their 
legislation represent him as trampling on the privileges of the 

quo neque infirmitudini esset neque oneri, animo alacer, membris vegetus, 
eques prumptissimus, sagittarum jaetu peritus, contu impiger, bellis ap- 
tissimus, pacis artibus Celebris, nullius avaritiae, minimae cupiditatis, 
bonis animi praeditUs, ne itopulsoribus quidem. pravis ab instituto sue 
devians, injuriarum patientissimus, laboris adpetens, inpavidus pericu- 
lorum, famis, sitis, vigiliarum tolerantissimus. Cui ab ineunte aetata 
praedictum liquet, quantae potentiae fatis destinaretur, temporibus suia 
locisque celebrandus.'* 

* See Clinton in an. 424. Olympiodoros makes bim be created " Nobi- 
lissimus" (NcDiSeAtVcrzyuos) by Theodosius. Pbilostorgios (xii. 12) has him 
already created k-mcpaviaTaTos, which must mean the same, by Honorius. 

f His panegyrist is ho other than trocopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3), who is 
copied by Souidas (^Iwavvrjs) \ he makes, however, a strange mistake as to 
the length of his reign as well as in the description of his calling ; ol 5e 
T^s kv "Pwjjiri ^aaiXiws avXfjs toiv riva k/cHvp arpariaiTuiv, 'iwavvqv ovofxa, 0a(Ti\ea 
aipovvrai. -qv Se ovtos avfip npaos re koL ^weffeois eii tjkoiv icnl dperiji fiira- 
TTOieTcrdaL e^emaTafievo^- ttivre yovv err] Tfjv rvpavviSa exoir' fierpiajs f^rjjTicraTO, 
Kal ovre rois SiaPdWovai rr/v clkot^v vviax^v ovre <p6vov dSticov fipyacraro fKwv 
ye elvai ovre xP'JA'otojj' d(paipecrei eneOero' es 5e Pap^apovs oiSlv on koi irpd^ai 
oi6s re ejeyovei, errei ot rd Ik 'Bv^avriov iroKepLia tjv. We shall soon learn to 
distrust Procopius for times so long before his own day ; but his picture 
of John seems rather to fall in with one or two incidental notices. The 
election spoken of is more likely to have happened at Ravenna than at 
Rome ; but the curious anecdote preserved by Olympiodoros (468, see 
Hodgkin, i.) looks as if he was not disliked ; 'Iwdwrjs ris alOevrqaas 
Tvpavvei' i<p' ov Kal rfis dvapprjaecos yevofJLevrjs, epp-qOrj uicnrep dno rivos iroppTjaeus 
TrpoaxOiv, "mTTTej, oii arrjKei." Kal ro irXrjOos, wanep dvaXxiovres enl rb prjdev, 
dva<puvov(ri, "arriKet, ov mnTfi," What is the exact force of avOevTrjaas? 



Appendix I. 323 

clergy, much like our Henry II *. He was acknowledged in 
Italy, Gaul, and Spain ; that he was not acknowledged in 
Africa we have already seen f. Not a soldier himself, he had 
men of war at his side. His cause was maintained by the 
magister militum Castinus, whom we have heard of as the 
enemy of Boniface %. Aetius was on the same side, Count of 
the Domestics and holding the civil office of cura palatii under 
the new sovereign of the West. This last was the office which 
in a later form became curopalates, the special guardian of the 
august dwelling-place and its building §. But between Aetius 
and Boniface, though they are on opposite sides, there is no 
sign of any direct hostility. The leader of the enterprise 
against Boniface in Africa may have been the Goth Sigisvult || ; 
it certainly was not Aetius. For he was sent on an errand in 
quite an opposite direction. Marked out for such a mission by 
his knowledge of the barbarians and by his influence araong 



* Cod. Theod. xvi. Tit. ii. 47 (vi. 94) ; "Privilegia ecclesiarum omnium 
quae sseculo nostro tyrannus invaderat, prona devotioiie revocamus. . . . 
Clericos etiam quos indiscretim ad saeculares judices debere duel in- 
faustus ille prsesumptor dixerat, episcopali andientise reservamus." See 
Tillemont, Hist, des Emp. vi. 184. One tliinks of the Constitutions of 
Clarendon. 

■f See above, p. 317, note *. 

t Prosper, 423 ; " Honorius moritur, et regnum ejus Joannes occupat, 
connivente, ut putabatur, Castino, qui exercitui magister militum prae- 
fuit," and in 425 on the defeat of John, "Castinus in exsilium actus est, 
quia videbatur Joannem sine conniventia ipsius regnum non potuisse 
assumere." He had just before, in 422, said that Castinus '•' Bonifacium 
virum bellicis artibus prseclarum, inepto et injurioso imperio ab expedi- 
tionis suae soeietate avertit," &c. 

§ So Eenatus ; "Ex comite domesticorum et Johannis cura palatii." 
See Ducange in Cura. His Formula is given by Cassiodorus, viii. 15. 
This seems to be the " Castrensis saeri palatii " of the Notitia, i. 4, 47. 
See Giilden penning, 281. 

II Prosper Tiro places here the entry " Sigisvuldus ad Africam contra 
Bonifacium properavit," as if Sigisvult had been sent on behalf of John. 
But one cannot help thinking that this is a confusion with his later 
expedition. I know not whether Migne's edition has any authority for 
the form given to his name, " Sigisvultdeus," which savours rather of an 
African, either Catholic or Donatist, than of an Arian Goth. Elsewhere 
he is Sigisvulftis or Sigisvuldus. Wald, we may suppose, is the true 
ending. 

Y 2 



324 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

them, he was sent to bring a Hunnish force to the help of 
John *. 

This is the earliest act that is distinctly recorded in the 
"Western career, in the military career, of the man whose 
highest renown is to have been the first to check the advance 
of Attila. It is a strange beginning, but the bringing in of 
barbarian allies had long been too common to be looked on 
with any special horror, and Hunnish mercenaries had been 
often employed before and were often employed after. The 
story sets Aetius before us as wonderfully skilful in the 
management of Romans and barbarians alike, but he did 
little for the prince whose cause he had taken up. Johannes 
Augustus was premature. So, though less glaringly, was 
Johannes the Eoman consul of the next year. There was 
a consul John thirty-two years later f : but the first acknow- 
ledged imperial bearer of the name of the Baptist and the 
Evangelist was the Armenian hero of the tenth century, the 
renowned John Tzimiskes. In the imperial fasti of the West 
no name of that class found a place till the House of Habsburg 
favoured the world with an august Matthias and two august 
Josephs. The house of Theodosius, represented by Placidia 
Augusta and her son, had not lost all hold on the sympathies 
of the West. The present Theodosius, the ruler of the East, 
now in loyal eyes sole emperor, sent his aunt and the boy 
Valentinian, now proclaimed Caesar, to dislodge the tyrant 
John by the arms of Ardaburius and his son Aspar %. The 
details of his overthrow do not directly touch the career of 
Aetius ; but we are carried on towards our later narrative 
when we see Aquileia playing for the last time the part of one 
of the great cities of the earth. It was in its hippodrome that 
John paid the cruel forfeit of less than two years' dominion §. 

* This is most strongly brought up by Eenatus ; "Johannes Aetium, 
id temporis curam palatii, cum ingenti auri pondere ad Chunos trans- 
mittit, notus sibi obsidatus sui tempore et familiari amieicia devinctos." 

f Johannes and Vei-anes are consuls in 456. 

X This story is told by Philostorgios, xii. 13 ; Sokrates, yii. 23, 26 ; 
Olympiodoros, 471. 

§ Philost. xii. 13 ; 'laia.fVTjs . . . ds 'Afcokrjiav kKTrefnrfTai, kolku rfp/ bi^iav 



Appendix I. 325 

Ravenna, which had maintained his cause, became, after 
a passing sack, the dwelling-place in life and death of the 
restored Augusta ; but it was in Rome itself that the third 
Valentinian, the seven years' old son of the third Constantius, 
was proclaimed Augustus by the authority of his Eastern 
colleague *. Three days after the death of John, Aetius came 
with 60,000 Huns to his support. A battle took place between 
the new comers and the forces of Valentinian under the com- 
mand of Aspar, in which many were slain on both sides. An 
agreement followed ; Aetius entered the service of Placidia 
and Valentinian with the rank of count. He had influence 
enough with his barbarian following to persuade them to go 
back on receiving what, after an analogy in our own history, 
we may call a JI%mgeld\. Perhaps they also told at home 
what a city Aquileia would be for some lucky band of Huns to 
plunder or to destroy. 

The sphere of action of Aetius is now at once changed to 
Gaul. Enlisted in the service of Placidia and Valentinian, he 
sets forth to establish the dominion of his sovereigns alike 
against disaffected Romans, of whom we see some signs, 
against the West-Goth who threatened Aries, and in course 
of time against perhaps every barbarian enemy or rebel who 
had made a settlement in Gaul or was striving either to settle 

irpo5iaT/x.r]6eh, elra Kal rrjs Kf<pa\rii dnoTejxveTai. Procopius (Bell. Vand. i. 3) 
adds some details ; ^Sivra OvaXevrivtavos 'laiavvrfv \al3cbv eV re r& 'AKvKrjias 
tnvoSpofiiq) rijv krkpav tcuv x^P^^^ aTtOKOirivTa ela^yev eTro/xtievae re 6vq> oxov- 
fievov, Kal rroWd irapd ruv dtto cTKrjVTJs evravda ■na$6vra re ical aKOvaavra 
eKreivev. The importance of Salona is as marked in the story as that of 
Aquileia. 

* This is told in various ways, but that the admission to the rank of 
Augustus was at Rome is plain from Olympiodoros. It seems to have 
been the last fact that he recorded. So Idatius. 

f Our best account is Philostorgios, xii. 14 ; 'Aerios 6 viroarparTjyds 
'Iwavvov Tov rvpavvov, fXird rpeis ^fiepas rjjs eKeivov rtXevrrjs, ISapPdpovs ayoav 
pLiaOwrovs eis ^' x'^'^Sas irapayivtrai' Kal avnTr\oKrjs avroO re Kal raiv itepl rbv 
""Affnapa yeyevqpievrjs, (povos tKarepeuOev eppvr] troXiis' eneira airovSas 6 'Aerios 
riOerai npbs Il\aKt8lav Kal OvaXevTiviavov, Kal rf)v rov Ko/jirjTos d^iav Xa/i^avei, 
Kal 01 ^dpl3apoi xpvffiq) KaraOefxevoi rrjv opyrjv Kal rd oirXa, dfirjpovs re Sovres Kal 
rd TTiard XajSovres, els rd oiKeia fidt] direxojpTjcrav. This is very like a Dane- 
geld. So Prosper ; " data venia Aetio, quod Hunni quos per ipsum 
Joannes acciverat ejusdem studio ad propria reversi stint." 



326 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

or to destroy. But this his purely Gaulish and military career 
will be best dealt with elsewhere ; no one has brought that 
side of him into connexion with his alleged enmity to Boniface 
or with political intrigues of any kind. Of the undoubted 
enemies of Boniface one was now set aside from his rank and 
another was put in his place. Of the two chief supporters of 
John, Aetius had won the favour of the \dctorious side ; 
Castinus was less lucky. He was sent into banishment ; the 
reason assigned is that it seemed that John could not have 
assumed the empire without his consent *. The wording is 
remarkable ; it might imply that the partisanship of Castinus 
was less open than that of Aetius. If so, the secret plotters 
fared, and perhaps justly, worse than the avowed enemy who 
had led the Huns to the attack of the armies of Valentinian. 
Castinus now vanishes from the story. His office was seem- 
ingly bestowed on a certain Felix, whom we hear of as magisfer 
militum in the next year. To this man's power of mischief 
justice has clearly not been done, and it looks very much as if 
some of his actions, especially his dealings with Boniface, had 
been transferred to Aetius. No process could be more natural 
in the next age, when Aetius was still a great name, but when 
Felix was doubtless forgotten. His first recorded act has 
nothing to do with either Boniface or Aetius. He is charged 
with the deaths of Patroclus bishop of Aries and of Titus, 
a holy deacon at Eome, who is said to have been killed by the 
practice of Felix while he was in the act of giving alms to the 
poor f. The Eoman tale is obscure ; the Gaulish one is of 
some importance in Gaulish history, and as such I hope to 
speak of it elsewhere. Neither of them throws any light on 
the general story, but both — even if they were only suspicions 
— throw some light on the character of Felix. In the next 
year Felix comes into the very thick of the main story, and we 
must look back for a moment at the position of Boniface. We 
have seen that he was perhaps in command in Africa before 

* See above, p. 323, note J. 

t Prosper (426), after the death of Patroclus, adds "cujus [Felicis] 
impulsu creditus est etiam Titus diaconus vir sanctus Romse pecuniaa 
pauperibus distribuens interemptus." 



Appendix I. 327 

the expedition of Castinus to Spain in 422, that he certainly 
was in command there after he had refused to share in that 
expedition, but whether by a perfectly regular appointment is 
not quite clear *. We have seen also the way in which Africa 
under Boniface held out against John. Still we cannot quite 
forget either the way in which his position in Africa has 
already been spoken of, or the fact, to which we shall come 
presently, that the next time we hear of him he is in distinct, 
perhaps armed, opposition to the emperor's orders. Meanwhile 
he had gone on for a season winning great glory by his ad- 
ministration of his province, and his successful defence of it 
against native African marauders. The words of his corre- 
spondent Saint Augustine here come happily in to explain the 
vaguer entries of the annalist, and to make us understand their 
connexion with the entry that follows. In the annals Boniface 
does great exploits and wins great glory, and is presently dealt 
with as a rebel f. The words of Augustine J give us the 

* See above, p. 315, note %. 

+ Prosper, 427 ; " Hierio et Ardabure coss. Bonifacio, cujus potentia 
gloriaque intra Africam augebatur, bellum ad arbitrium Felicis, quia ad 
Italiam venire abnuerat, publico nomine illatum est." Prosper here 
seems to speak admiringly of Boniface ; yet we must remember his 
earlier language about "invadit" and ''obtinebat" ; it is even possible 
that the w^ord "potentia" looks the same way. At any rate the in- 
creasing power and glory of a subject were in those days an unavoidable 
object of jealousy to the prince. Anyhow it is droll when Giildenpenning 
(280) extols Bonifacius as the ever-loyal adherent of Placidia through all 
difficulties. This writer, like the good old Tillemont, does not shirk the 
annalists, but tries to believe them and the legend too. 

X Aug. ep. 220 (or 70), ad Bon. (Op. ii. 814, ed, Bened.) ; '' Quid autem 
dicam de vastatione Africse, quam faciunt Afri barbari resistente nuUo, 
dum tu talibus tuis necessitatibus occuparis, nee aliquid ordinas unde 
ista calamitas avertatur? Quis autem crederet, quis timeret, Bonifacio 
domesticorum et Africse comite in Africa constituto cum tam magno 
exercitu et potestate . . . nunc tantum fuisse barbaros ausuros, tantum 
progressuros, tanta vastaturos, tanta raptures, tanta loca quae plena 
populis fuerant deserta facturos? Qui non dicebant quandocumque tu 
comitivam sumeres potestatem, Afros barbaros, non solum domitos, sed 
etiam tributaries futures Komanae reipublicae ? Et nunc quam in con- 
traria versa sit spes horainum vides, nee diutius hinc tecum loquendum, 
quia plus ea tu potes cogitare quam nos dicere." It is not easy to see 
when Boniface was invested with the rank of count. Augustine's words 



328 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

key : we see that, if Boniface had gained great glory, he had 
deservedly lost it, and had become an object of reasonable 
suspicion at court. From the same source we learn his exact 
official rank at this time ; he was Count of the Doraestics and 
count of Africa. But the count, at any rate at the time of 
Augustine's letter, was less active than the tribune had been 
in times past. At the time of his appointment all men had 
hoped that under his government Africa would again become 
a peaceful Roman land, with its native tribes again subjects 
and tributaries of the empire. Now all this had changed ; the 
barbarians took heart ; they advanced, they laid waste lands 
which they had never before touched. The discourse is wholly 
about native Africans. There is not a word which can have 
any possible reference to the Vandals ; it was clearly written 
before the coming of the Vandals was thought of. The whole 
correspondence between the saint and the count is of deep 
personal and ecclesiastical interest. Boniface is set before us 
as a dear friend of Augustine, as at one time a man of 
scrupulous life and religious zeal, full of interest in theological 
subjects, on which he poses his illustrious friend with hard 
questions. But he had fallen away from his personal as well 
as from his official duties. By a story exactly the reverse of 
that of our own Simon, he had vowed chastity after the death 
of his wife, but he was now not only married again to a rich 
lady named Pelagia, but he had allowed his child to receive 
Arian baptism, and he was further suspected of living with 

might almost imply that all his brilliant exploits had been done when he 
held no higher rank than that of tribune, and that he had failed in his 
duty ever since his promotion. We might also suppose that he had not 
been count very long when the letter was written. Now the letter must 
be earlier than 428, the year of the coming of the Vandals. It is most 
naturally fixed to 427, the time of the action of Felix against Boniface. 
If Boniface in that year was count, but had not been count very long, the 
most natural time for his appointment would be in 425, as the reward of 
his defence of Africa against John, This might fall in with the several 
hints which suggest that there was something irregular about his position 
in Africa at an earlier time. We may suppose that, whatever it was 
before, it was legalized now, but that, as Augustine implies, the count 
fell away from the merits of the tribune and thereby brought on himself 
the imperial censure which is implied in the events of 427. 



Appendix I. 329 

mistresses. So busy was he with his own affairs that he had 
allowed Africa to be overrun by Africans. For all these faults 
both as a Christian man and as a Eoman commander, the 
saint sternly rebukes him and gives him good advice in both 
characters. But he assuredly in no way reproves him for 
treasonable dealings with Gaiseric, which, if they ever happened 
at all, certainly had not happened then *. 

There are one or two other points in the letter that may be 
noticed. Boniface had been, at some stage or other, anxious 
to retire from the world, and to give himself wholly to re- 
ligious duties. He married his second wife in some country 
which was reached from Africa by sea, and the voyage was one 
which he undertook by imperial bidding f. This and the fact 
that the lady seems to have been an Arian might seem to 
point to Spain. But it is most unlikely that a woman bearing 
the name of Pelagia should have been of Vandal birth. Boni- 
face may have been sent to Spain on many unrecorded errands. 
What we cannot do is to connect such a voyage with that 
expedition of Castinus when Boniface did not go to Spain. 
Again Augustine, when rebuking Boniface for his neglect of 
his military duties, makes Boniface answer that the fault is not 
with him, but with those who had wronged him and made 
him an evil return for his good service %. This doubtless 
points to the enmity of Castinus and Felix. It might even 
suggest that the letter was written at the very time of the 
expedition sent by Felix against Boniface, a time not likely 

* See the earlier letter of Augustine to Boniface, No. 185 or 50. In the 
very weak article on Boniface in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman 
Biography by a late popular writer, all this about the Africans is turned 
into "bitter reproaches" for the supposed dealings with Gaiseric. In 
the Dictionary of Christian Biography no lay Boniface is allowed ; the 
article on Augustine does not contain the name of Boniface, but it does 
contain the astounding statement that Augustine died "when the armies 
of the Huns surrounded the city of Hippo." 

t All this comes out in letter 220. The most important passage is; 
"Navigasti, uxoremque duxisti, sed navigasse obedientiae fuit quam se- 
cundum apostolum debebas sublimioribus potestatibus " (ii. 813). 

X Ep. 220; "Sed forte ad ea respondes illis hoc esse potius impu- 
tandum qui te Iseserant, qui tuis oflficiosis virtutibus non paria sed 
contraria reddidervmt.'' 



330 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

to be marked by vigorous action against the native barbarians. 
But if Boniface had been in open rebellion at the time of the 
sending of the letter, surely Augustine would have made some 
reference to that fact. It is far more likely that the letter 
comes earlier, and that in the state of things which it describes 
we see the explanation of what we read in the chronicles. We 
see Boniface, from whatever cause, falling aside from his 
former excellence, ghostly and worldly, and above all, what 
concerned the empire more than his irregular marriage, grossly 
neglecting his duty as a Roman military commander in the 
province of Africa. There is no direct mention of Castinus 
and Felix in the acknowledged letters of Augustine ; but there 
is a remarkable collection of short letters, purporting to be 
exchanged between the bishop and the count, which have been 
unanimously cast aside by Augustine's editors and commen- 
tators. They are rejected, partly as inconsistent with the 
saint's style and manner, but partly also as inconsistent with 
the history of the time. On the former charge the condem- 
nation seems to rest on good grounds*. There is an abrupt- 
ness, a jerkiness in truth, about the letters which is not in the 
manner of Augustine ; their very shortness, when the subject 
supplied such an opportunity for moralizing, is against them. 
Some of the expressions used are hardly in character, and it 
has even been suggested that some of the expressions used are 
designed to advance certain ecclesiastical theories. On the 
whole, we cannot accept the letters as genuine writings of 
Augustine and Boniface. Still they are not without value. 
The objection to them on historical grounds merely conies to 
this, that whoever forged them followed the authentic story of 
the annalists, and not the Procopian legend. He may even 
have lived at the time and have written from his own know- 
ledge. If so, his witness is, like that of many a false charter, 
good on all points save the one which he is trying to establish. 
Even if we place him later, he at any rate made up his story 
from trustworthy sources or from traditions consistent with 

* I have to thank Dr. Bright, who knows the writings of Augustine 
far better than I do, for some most valuable hints on this side of the 
question. 



Appendix I. 331 

them, and he is the only writer who has done so. The 
invasion of Africa by the imperial troops sent against Boniface 
is strongly brought out *. Felix is not mentioned by name, 
but he is clearly alluded to f, and the name of Castinus comes 
in more than once. If we trust the letters, he sought shelter 
in Africa when he was banished from Italy in 425 J. The 
shelter may seem a strange one for the old enemy of Boniface, 
but we must again remember the very doubtful position of 
Boniface in Africa. He had defended that province against 
John ; but his earlier and later relations to Honorius and 
Placidia are such as to make it possible that the fallen magister 
militum might expect that his own offences towards Boniface 
might be thought less of than those of the imperial government. 
In any case we have the undoubted fact that, only two 
years after the fall of John, Boniface was looked on at Ea- 
venna as an enemy of the empire. What was his offence ? It 
is easy to talk about the intrigues of Aetius or of anybody 

* In Appendix, ep. 4 (or 185), Augustine is made to say, with a clear 
reference to the Arian Sigisvult ; "Africae litus, ut audio, miles attigit 
transmarinus, sed hujus militis dux a catholica veritate dissentit. Quid 
orem sicut oportet ignore. Ab Italia hostis est publicus nuntiatus, contra 
victricia signa superbas erigens hastas. Pacem inter vos fieri vellem si 
scirem plenius quod ignoro. Adest quidem Africae olim paratum in 
Italia bellum, sed tamen non invideo, fili carissime, Romanise. Sed dico 
quod sentio. Non dabit, divinitate juvante, catholicus hseretico terga. 
Tui cordis intentio dirigatur ad Deum, non militem timebis, non Gothum 
non Hunum." 

"t" Boniface, in answer (5 or 186), talks about " quae adversus me tyrannus 
ille ordinaverit ac disponat," all in a style of high orthodoxy. 

J App. 10 (or 191) ; '' Castinus ille privatus ex consule vitse meae ac 
nominis, omnibus ut notum est, persecutor, pejores committens ac fingens 
factiones, quasi ruearum a me gestarum immemor, donationum (another 
reading is 'Edatium'), Italia fugiens, meis se in Africa defensionibus 
tradidit committendum." Augustine (11 or 192) answers, " Vir illus- 
trissimus Castinus sacramento se prodidit quod sit ab omni culpa et 
erroribus alienus. Quem tibi, ut dicit, fcederatus ille Sonia, adhuc te in 
palatio posito, falsis suggestionibus concitabat." All this looks as if it 
referred to an earlier time, to the banishment of Castinus in 425. And 
who is "Edatius"? — Aetius? or who? But there is enough of likeness 
to the true story to suggest that there is, after all, something in these 
letters, and that the stories about Gudila — a name hardly likely to have 
been invented — may be worth examining. 



332 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

else, but once put the Procopian legend out of sight and the 
matter seems very plain. Boniface, as his saintly friend wit- 
nesses, had grossly neglected his duty, and he was called on to 
account for it. After Augustine's letter it is really nothing 
wonderful if we read in the annals that Boniface was sum- 
moned to Italy — that is, to Eavenna ; and that when he 
refused to come, he was declared a public enemy. But the 
minister who directed this course, whether wise or foolish, was 
not Aetius but Felix *. Of Aetius just at this moment there 
is no mention at all; a little while before and a little while 
after he is carrying on his great career in Gaul f. It is to be 
noted that at this point the tone of the Aquitanian chronicler 
betrays perhaps a feeling of sympathy with Boniface, certainly 
a feeling against Felix, which would be natural enough after 
even the suspicion of the deaths of Patroclus and Titus. But 
though Felix may have been a bad and even a bloody minister, 
his first action against Boniface was assuredly not taken with- 
out reason. . The count of Africa lets his province be harried 
by barbarians without resistance ; he is summoned to Eavenna 
to explain his conduct ; refusing to come, he is declared an 
enemy of the republic. ■ All this is plain enough ; there is no 
mention of any action of Aetius ; there is no mention, nor as 
yet any hint, of any dealings between Boniface and Gaiseric. 
What we have as yet is a war carried on by the Eoman 
government against a Eoman rebel. Three commanders are 
sent against Boniface ; one perhaps would have done the work 
better, as the three disagreed. Two of them, Mavortius and 
Galbio, besiege Boniface in some place not named.. Their 



* Prosper, 427 ; " Hierio et Ardabure coss. Bonifacio, cujus potentia 
gloriaque intra Africam augebatur, bellum ad arbitrium Felicis, quia ad 
Italiam venire abnuerat, publico nomine illatum est, dueibus Mavortio et 
Galbione et Sinoce." Giildenpenning (283) knows the workings of the 
mind of Aetius as minutely as Augustine knew those of Boniface ; 
"Aetius aber, um nicht dem Argwohn in der Brust der Placidia neue 
Nahrung zu gewahren, liess sich nicht selbst gegen seinen Nebenbuhler 
entsenden, sondern sein Parteigenosse, der magister militum Felix, beauf- 
tragte den Mavortius, Galbio und Sinox mit der Fiihrung der r5mischen 
Truppen gegen den ' Keichsfeind ' Bonifacius." 

f See Prosper 425 for his Gothic, and 428 for his Prankish victories. 



Appefidix I. 333 

colleague Sinox enters into a treasonable correspondence with 
Boniface, and by his ai-ts the two loyal commanders are killed. 
Then Boniface discovers Sinox in some plot against himself, 
and puts him to death also. Another commander, with the 
distinctly barbarian name of Sigisvult, a man who has already 
flitted before us as a shadow, is sent to carry on the war with 
Boniface instead of the three who have all perished. 

All this follows naturally enough : it rests on good authority ; 
we should simply be glad of fuller details. But between the 
death of Sinox and the appointment of Sigisvult, we come to 
an entry of the very darkest, made dark, we may be sure, of 
set purpose *. While the strife was going on, the disputants, 
both sides it would seem, asked for the help of certain people 
who had no knowledge of ships, but to whom the sea was laid 
open by their invitation. Then comes the appointment of 
Sigisvult, and then an entry in which our sainted chronicler 
leaves off speaking in proverbs and tells us plainly that the 
people of the Vandals crossed from Spain into Africa. That 
event is perhaps put a little too early ; but its exact date and 
its exact details do not concern us. Gaiseric may have been 
planning such an enterprise long before ; it is here implied — 
for the Vandals of the clear entry are surely the unnamed 
people of the dark one — that the immediate occasion of the 
migration was the application for help from some or other of 
the Eoman commanders in the civil war decreed by Felix 
against Boniface. The words rather imply that application 
was made from at least two opposing quarters. Neither 
Mavortius, Galbio, Sinox, nor Boniface is personally named. 
Suspicion is very strong against Boniface, but he may not 
have applied to Gaiseric till his enemies had already done so ; 
he certainly did not do so till civil war was actually waging 



* Prosper, 427 ; " [Sinox] cujus proditione Mavortius et Galbio, cum 
Bonifacium obsiderent, interempti sunt, moxque ipse a Bonifacio dolo 
detectus, occisus est. Exinde gentibus, quae navibus uti nesciebant, dum 
a concertantibus in auxilium vocantur, mare pervium factum est, bellique 
contra Bonifacium coepti in Sigisvultum comitem cura translata est. 
Gens Vandalorum ab Hispania ad Africam transit." Idatius places the 
coming of the Vandals in 429, and says nothing about Boniface. 



334 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

against himself. If he ever thought of making himself tyrant 
by Vandal help, it was truly a great fall for the saintly hero 
described to us at an earlier time ; but it was no more than 
many other Eoman governors had done before him. 

The notice in Prosper is really the nearest approach which 
can be found in any contemporary writer to a charge against 
Boniface of inviting the Vandals into Africa. And Prosper 
does not go beyond a dark allusion, in which Boniface is not 
distinctly named. From this We may leap to the account in 
Jordanis, who three times attributes the coming of the Vandals 
to the treason of Boniface. Nothing is said of Aetius. Boni- 
face, being under the displeasure of Valentinian, sees no help 
for himself except in calling in Gaiseric *. In these hurried 
references there is nothing that at all contradicts the story in 
Prosper ; Jordanis perhaps hardly understood that the dis- 
pleasure of Valentinian had come to an actual war, and among 
the disputants darkly hinted at in the annals, he or those 
whom he followed naturally preserved the best known name t. 
We now come to the received story in all its detail, with the 
elaborate action of Aetius against Boniface. This is found 
only in the introductory matter with which Procopius brings 
in the Vandal war. In his narrative Placidia gives Boniface 
the supreme command in Africa. Aetius is displeased, but 
hides his displeasure t. When Boniface is away in his govern- 
ment, he tells Placidia that the count of Africa is aiming at 
tyranny, that he seeks to deprive Valentinian of the province ; 

* Getica, 167, 168, cap. xxxiii. ; " Gyzericus rex Vandalorum jam a 
Bonifatio in Africam invitatus, qui Valentiniano principi veniens in 
offensam non aliter se quam malo reipublicse potuit vindicare." 

f The entry in the Chronicle of Cassiodorus should here be told (Ron- 
calli, ii. 228) ; " Hierius et Ardabures. His coss. Bonifacio Africam tenenti 
infauste bellum ingeritui*. Gens Wandalorum a Gothis exclusa, de His- 
paniis ad Africam transit." Cassiodorus seems to have had Prosper 
before him ; but Jordanis can hardly have had the Chronicles of Cassio- 
dorus before him just then, whatever vre say of the Gothic History. 

X Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 322. (The passage immediately follows the de- 
scription of Boniface and Aetius quoted above.) tovtolv tov erepov 
BovifpaTiov 57 HXaKiSia arpaTqybv dneSet^e Atl3vr]s dirdcnjs' tovto 5e ov Bov\o- 
fxevw Tiv 'Aeriq}, dw' tjkktto, 76 ws avrbv ovk dpea/cei e^rjveyKey' ovirw yap 
aiiToiv fj tx^po- es ^ws e\r]\v9(i, d\\' virb tw vpocranTUq) iKarkpco iKpinrreTO. 



Appendix I. 335 

that she may judge of the truth of his charge by this sign. 
Let her summon Boniface to Home, and he will not come *. 
At the same time he writes a letter to Boniface, telling him 
that the emperor's mother is plotting against his Kfe, and that 
the sign of her plots is this ; she will recall him without 
cause t- Boniface receives the letter summoning him to the 
emperor's presence ; he refuses to go, but does not reveal the 
warning of Aetius. Placidia on this bestows her fullest con- 
fidence on Aetius, and debates what course to follow with 
regard to Boniface J. Boniface meanwhile, feeling that he is 
not strong enough to withstand the emperor and that to go to 
Rome would be his destruction §, turns his thoughts to the 
Vandals and invites G-aiseric into Africa, an invitation which 
the Vandal accepts and enters the province. Meanwhile the 
friends of Boniface at Eome are amazed that he of all men 
should turn tyrant II ; from not a few earlier examples they 
might infer that the invitation of barbarians and the taking up 
of the tyranny naturally went together. Some of them, at 
Placidia's bidding, go to Carthage; they see Boniface; he 
shows them the letters of Aetius ; they go back to Eome and 
report to Placidia. Her fear of the power of Aetius hinders her 
from taking any action against him, or even giving him any 
rebuke ^ ; but she tells the story to the friends of Boniface, 
and prays and adjures them to win him back to his duty ; let 

* Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 322 ; ScePaWev . . . us rvpavvoirj, dnocTTeprjaas avTrjv 
re Kat fiaaiXea AiPvrjs drrdar]s, k. t. \. Felix must have said sometliing very 
like this to Placidia. 

"I* lb. ; eyprnpe irphs BovKpariov \d9pa ws entPovXevoi avTw 77 PaatXiois fi'fjrrjp 
Kal PovXoiTo avTov eKiroSwy iroirjcraaOat, k. t. K. Somebody, not necessarily 
Felix, may have written this to Boniface in sober earnest. 

t lb. 

§ lb. ; icai yap 01 ovre ^acriKeT kSSicei avTird^aaOai o'i<y re eivai, Is 'Pdinrjv re 
dirioVTi ojEe/xia acoTr/pia fcpaivero. 

II lb. p. 324 ; Tov re rporrov ev9vfj.ovfj,evoi rov dvdpwirov, eK\oji(6fievoi re 
fjXiKos 6 TrapdXoyos rjv, Iv Oavfiart iieyaXw eiroiovvro, el BovKpdrios rvpavvoirj. 

^ lb. ; KarairKayeiaa fj yvvrj 'Aeriov p.ev ovSev elpydffaro axo^pi, ovSe ii 
uveiSiaev Siv avrw « rov PaffiXeoos oTkov enenpaicTO, eirel avros re dvvap,€i fieyaXy 
exp^TO Kal rd rrjs ^aaiXeias irpdypiara ■novqpd i]5r] ^v. Here we have the 
contemporary fact that at this stage there was no open quarrel between 
Placidia and Aetius, with the explanation of a later time that their 
seeming good understanding was only because of Placidia's fears. 



336 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

him not endure that the dominion of the Eomans should pass 
to barbarians. They again go to Africa and tell him all ; he 
repents of his alliance with Gaiseric, and strives in vain with 
great promises to persuade him to go back*. The Vandal, 
deeming himself mocked f, defeats the army under Boniface 
and besieges him in Hippo. Strengthened by a reinforcement 
from Constantinople under Aspar, he holds out till the Vandals 
raise the siege +. Then Aspar goes back, Boniface goes to 
Placidia, explains his case, and is received to favour §. Of 
the later fate of Boniface Procopius has nothing to say; he 
mentions him once again, but only to tell of a prophecy current 
before among the boys of Carthage. '' Gr should drive out B and 
then B should drive out G." So did Graiseric drive out Boniface 
and Belisarius drive out Gelimer ||. 

It is easy to point out the many difficulties and inconsistencies 
of this story. First of all, to look at the matter from the 
most general point of view, all tales of secret intrigue carry 
a certain suspicion about them, a suspicion which becomes yet 
greater when we hear of them for the first time in writers long 
after the event. We do not reject them because they are 
unlikely, but rather because they are so likely that they are 
sure to be reported, whether they happened or not. Or rather 
we do not strictly reject them, unless there is some distinct 
evidence against them ; we rather put them aside as unproved, 
as things which very well may have happened, but of which 
we cannot venture to say that they did happen. But here 
I think we have distinct evidence against the story. The 
informant from whom Procopius got the tale had clearly not 
taken in the state of things at the time. He looked on 
Boniface as an undoubtedly loyal governor in Africa ; he looked 

* Bell. Vand. i. 3, p. 324 ; t^s t€ irpd^ews airw koI ttjs ks tovs PapP&povs 
6;io\oyias nere/xeKe Kal avToiii eXiirdpet jxvpia ir&vTa vnoax^pievos and Ai^vrjs 
dvioTaaOai. 

\ lb. ; rcbv Se ovk evSexo/xevajv roiis \6yovs, dWa irepivfipi^faOai olofievckiv, ly 
XiTpas aiiTois e\6etv 7)vajicda6r]. 

t lb. p. 325. 

§ lb. ; T7)V vTToipiav SieXvey, ws ovk dXrjOovs alrias es avrbv yevoiro. 

II lb. i. 21, p. 397 ; dis TO yajj-ixa Siu^ei ro PrJTa koI irdkiv avrb to firjra 
Sioj^ei TO ydixfja. 



Appendix I, 337 

on Aetius as the minister of Placidia, living in Italy and at 
Eome. This last mark is curious indeed. When Procopius 
wrote the Vandal War, he had not had occasion to hear and 
think so much about Eavenna as he came to do before he 
wrote the Gothic War. He took Eome for granted as the 
imperial dwelling-place ; if he found it so assumed in the 
narrative that he followed, it did not occur to him as any 
difficulty. A little later, after his mother's death, Valentinian 
was more at Eome than any emperor had been for a good 
whUe ; but during the administration of Placidia we may 
always assume the imperial court to be at Eavenna unless 
proof can be shown that it was somewhere else. So again we 
cannot positively deny that Aetius may have been at this 
m.oment in Italy ; all that we can say is that there is nothing 
to show that he was in Italy and everything to make us think 
that he was in Gaul. Gaul was now his regular sphere of 
action. He has lately smitten the Goths on the Ehone ; he 
has before long to smite the Franks on the Ehine. The 
resident minister of Placidia at Eavenna was Felix. Aetius 
could, as we shall presently see, come to Italy on occasion ; 
but he was certainly not there habitually, and any tale which 
places him in Italy, and that not at Eavenna but at Eome, 
needs some special confirmation. And no such confirmation 
is to be had, but rather the contrary. The informant of 
Procopius had no idea of the real circumstances under which 
Boniface was summoned to Italy, circumstances which we 
learn from the letter of Augustine. He had no idea of the 
events which followed the summons, of the war declared 
against Boniface in the name of the empire and at the insti- 
gation of Felix. He leaves this out, and goes on at once to the 
story of the Vandals. He had no notion by whose influence 
all that happened was brought about ; he does not inention 
Felix at all ; so far as he preserves any shadow of the real 
story, he puts Aetius instead of Felix. To me it is plain that 
the whole story in Procopius grew out of a dim memory of 
the real later enmity — of which Procopius says nothing — 
between Aetius and Boniface, mixed up with a dim memory 
of the action of Felix towards Boniface now. The growth of 

z 



338 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

the story is easy. Somebody acted in an unfriendly way to 
Boniface in 427 ; Aetius and Boniface were enemies in 432. 
Therefore the enmity of Aetius is carried back to the earlier 
date ; the name of the real enemy of that date gives way to 
Aetius' far more famous name ; a story grows up in which the 
real circumstances of the time are forgotten, and legendary 
details suiting the supposed circumstances are fitted on. In 
this shape the tale is told to a statesman and soldier of the 
next age. He inserts the legend in his history. The true 
story still abides in the dry entries of a chronicler, which, 
fully to be understood, needed to be compared with writings 
with which men were familiar enough for purposes of pious 
edification, but to which they were not in the habit of turning 
for points of historical criticism. No wonder then that the 
legend lived on instead of the truth. Prosper, even with 
Augustine as his commentator, could not stand against 
Procopius. 

And now what is the real story about Boniface and G-aiseric ? 
What was Boniface doing at the time of the Vandal invasion 
of Africa ? We have seen the story in Procopius. Boniface 
invites Gaiseric ; he repents ; he wars with the Vandals ; he is 
besieged in Hippo ; he goes to Placidia and explains himself. 
In all this there is nothing that contradicts the account in the 
annals. It simply puts it out of sight. Somebody as we have 
seen, most Hkely more than one person, did invite Gaiseric, 
and Boniface is very likely to have been one of them. The 
battles are likely enough ; a Vandal siege of Hippo in which 
Boniface defended the city is witnessed by the best possible 
evidence, by that of Possidius the biographer of Augustine, 
who was actually within the besieged town *. What we 
com.plain of is that in the received story we hear only of 

* Possidius, Vit. Aug. 28, after describing the vast host "hostium Van- 
dalorum et Alanorum commixtam secum habens Gothorum gentem, 
aliarumque diversarum personas ex Hispanise partibus transmarinis," 
tells how they besieged Hippo when "in ejus fuerit defensione constitutus 
comts quondam Bonifacius Gothorum foederatorum exercitui." Possidius 
was in Hippo with several other bishops. The words in italic look 
rather as if Boniface, deprived of office, acted as a volvmteer against the 
Vandals. 



Appendix I. 339 

Graiseric and nothing of Sigisvult. Yet Sigisvult was certainly- 
doing something in Africa, something at Hippo. We have the 
witness of Augustine himself for that. Sigisvult, clearly 
a Groth — therefore doubtless an Arian — took with him an 
Arian bishop, Maximin by name, with whom the saint had 
long theological disputations, which are extant among his 
works. Augustine and Maximin met at Hippo in a time of 
war. The Arian professed that he had not come to Hippo to 
dispute with the Catholic, but that he was sent by Count 
"Sigisvult to make peace *. Peace between whom ? Obviously 
between Sigisvult and Boniface, against whom Sigisvult was 
sent to make war. It would be a forced construction indeed 
to make it in any way refer to Gaiseric. So again, in the 
forged letters, there are several references to an heretical 
enemy coming from Italy, who can be no other than Sigisvult. 
Against him Boniface wages war, and Augustine is even made 
to congratulate him on a victory f. If this is not true history, 
it is most distinctly well imagined. The most natural expla- 
nation of all this is that the events referred to in the letters of 
Augustine, both acknowledged and doubtful, belong to the 
year 427, the year of the expedition of Sigisvult, or at any rate 
to a time before the coming of Gaiseric, which is best fixed to 
429 t. The unlucky thing is that we know nothing of the 
issue of the expedition of Sigisvult, and it is hard to avoid the 
conjecture that, as it so utterly passed out of mind, some of its 
events got mixed up with the story of the coming and settle- 



* Augustine has a long Collatio cum Maximino (vol. viii. 649 of the 
Benedictine edition). It begins, " Cum Augustinus et Maximinus Hip- 
pone Regie unum in locum convenissent, . . . Maximinus dixit, Ego non ob 
istam causam in hanc civitatem adveni ut altereationem proferam cum 
religione tua, sed missus a comite Sigisvulto contemplatione pacis adveni." 
For "Sigisvulto" the older edition has "regis multa." See Tillemont, 
Mem. Eccl. xiii. 1041. Again in Augustine, Sermo cxl. (vol. v. 680 B), we 
read, " Contra quoddam dictum Maximini Arianorum episcopi, qui cum 
Sigisvulto comite constitutus in Africa blasphemabat." So Possidius (17) 
speaks of him as "Ai'ianorum episcopus Maximinus cum Gothis ad 
Africam veniens." 

t See above, p. 331, note *, and the letters 14 (195), 15 (19o). 

J See above, p. 327, note f. 

Z 2 



340 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

ment of Gaiseric. Almost at the same moment Africa under- 
goes two invasions, and Boniface acts against two invaders. 
To be sure, one invader was a Eoman officer sent against 
a rebellious governor, the other was a barbarian king tearing 
away a province from the empire. Still both were barbarians, 
both were heretics ; they fought, perhaps actually at the same 
time, in the same land, against the same enemy. It was easy 
to forget the difference between the position of Sigisvult the 
Groth and that of Gaiseric the Vandal, and to merge the doings 
of the less known man in those of the more famous. It may 
well be that, as the excellent Tillemont suggests, peace was 
made between Boniface and the government of Eavenna by 
a certain Count Darius, another of the correspondents of 
Augustine, who was certainly sent into Africa about this time 
to make peace between some disputants or other *. If so, 
Boniface must have been restored to favour at the latest in 
430, the year of Augustine's death f, and that most likely as 
the reward of his services, perhaps volunteered at Hippo. Of 
the later career of Sigisvult we know only that he must have 
kept a high reputation in some quarter or other. For ten years 
later he was consul, consul in company with Aetius t- Aetius 
was then in the midst of Gaulish warfare, and this, his second 
appointment, came surely from Eavenna and not from Con- 
stantinople. This might imply that Sigisvult was in favour in 
the East as well as in the West. It is unlucky that we hear 
so little of him ; but we may safely set down the CoUatio 
between Augustine and Maximin to the year of his action in 
Africa, probably before the Vandal invasion had begun. And 
we may fix the acknowledged letter of Augustine to Boniface 
as belonging to a time earlier still, when their coming was not 
expected, to a time, one is inclined to think, before the dis- 
obedience of Boniface to the summons of Placidia. The 
dangers of which the letter speaks are neither from the Vandals 
nor from the imperial army, but from native Africans. As to 
the possible relations between Boniface and Gaiseric Augustine 

* See ep. 229 (or 262), 231 (or 264). The saint's correspondent ia 
" Darius comes, qui pacis conficiendse causa missus est." 
t Prosper in anno. X See Prosper in 436, 437, 438. 



Appendix I. 341 

tells us nothing. Those relations are so prominent in the 
version of Procopius, and in all the versions that have been 
copied from his, that it is hard to keep them out of our heads. 
But we must remember that there is no direct reference to 
them in any contemporary writer ; there is only the very dark 
hint in Prosper. The story has been oddly turned about. 
The possible, but not more than possible, tale of Boniface 
inviting Gaiseric into Africa has taken a permanent place in 
history ; the undoubted fact that he disobeyed the orders of 
the empress and was therefore proclaimed a public enemy has 
altogether passed out of memory. 

One part of the story in Procopius may be accepted without 
doubt, namely the coming of Aspar with the troops from 
Constantinople. Of Aspar we have heard already as one of 
the commanders sent to displace John from the Western 
throne ; in later times he had the disposal of the Eastern 
throne, and his African campaign was made memorable by the 
story of the omen which foretold the future greatness of 
Marcian *. It is only against Gaiseric that Aspar can possibly 
have been sent. So again, the statement of Procopius that 
Boniface went to Placidia and explained matters to her 
satisfaction is doubtless his version of the event of 432, when 
we do at last see Boniface in Italy, restored to the favour of 
Placidia, and really acting as the enemy of Aetius. But 
between the expedition sent to chastise the rebel Boniface in 
Africa and the appearance of Boniface himself as a high 
imperial officer in Italy, five years passed, five years of no 
small moment in the life of Aetius. 

In 428 came his great Prankish campaign, and we are not 
surprised to hear of his being raised the next year to a higher 
military rank. In the consulship of Florentius and Dionysius, 
Felix is exalted to the dignity of patrician, and Aetius takes 
his place as magister militum f. This is plain enough ; the 
entries of the next year are very puzzling. Our Spanish bishop 
records a number of exploits of Aetius in this and in the next 

* Bell. Vand. i. 4, p. 826. 

f Prosper ; " Florentio et Dionysio coss. (429). Felice ad patriciam 
dignitatem provecto, Aetius raagister militum factus est." 



342 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

year, and for the next year he is the best possible witness, as 
he himself had personal dealings with Aetius. Between 
Aetjus's exploits of 429 and 430 he tells us that Felix was 
killed at Ravenna in a military outbreak *. Here is certainly 
nothing to suggest that Aetius had anything to do with this 
disturbance ; the entry of the death of Felix breaks in on an 
otherwise continuous narrative of events in Gaul and Spain in 
which Aetius is the grand figure ; we might have been tempted 
to think that it was meant to be specially marked as an event 
connected in time but no otherwise. Our Aquitanian guide 
tells us another story. He records the exploits of Aetius in 
429 ; in 430 he mentions him only for the startling announce- 
ment that in that year Aetius put to death Felix and his wife 
Padusia and the deacon Grunnitus, because he found them to 
be plotting against him f. This entry, when compared with 
that of Idatius, seems more contradictory than any formal 
contradiction. Formal contradiction there certainly is none. 
Aetius may have found time for a hurried journey to Eavenna 
on this special errand, even at a time when he was, just before 
and just after, so busy in other parts of the world. This is 
quite another thing from representing him, as the legend in 
Procopius does, as the habitual adviser of Placidia at Eavenna 
or at Eome. Or, though such a reading would be a little 
forced, the magister militum may have found means to stir up 
the troops at Eavenna to the slaughter of Felix, even though 
he was himself elsewhere. In any case, the entry in Prosper, 
distinct and detailed as it is, is of very high authority. We 
might almost apply the rule, Credo quia impossihile. It is far 
more likely that Idatius should have left out the name of 
Aetius, either purposely or accidentally, than that Prosper 
should have put it in where it had absolutely no place. But 



* Idatius, VI. Valentiniani ; " Felix qui dicebatur patricius BavennaB 
tumultu occiditur militari." 

t Prosper ; " Theodosio XIII et Valentiniano III coss. (430). Aetius 
Felicem cum tixore sua Padusia et Grunnitum diaconum, cum eos 
insidiari sibi prsesensisset, interemit." Giildenpenning (p. 306) again 
sees very deep into the heart of Aetius. Padusia has been thought to be 
the ^vdSovaa of Olympiodoros, p. 467. 



Appendix I. 343 

we shall do well to stop and think carefully how much the two 
entries taken together really prove. The entry in Prosper 
clearly proves that Aetius was at least very generally charged 
with the deaths of Felix, Padusia, and Grunnitus. Were it 
not for the entry in Idatius, we should have said that it proved 
much more than this. The words of Prosper would certainly 
not have suggested an outbreak of the soldiers. They would 
most naturally be taken of private murder ; they are perhaps 
not quite incompatible with a public execution, military or 
civil. But they do not distinctly contradict the story of the 
military sedition, which Idatius distinctly asserts. We must 
therefore accept the statement that Felix, and therefore most 
likely his wife and the deacon, were killed in the outbreak of 
the soldiers. But we can hardly suppose that the magister 
militum openly gave the word of command for the slaughter of 
the patrician. Such an act would be perfectly possible, as in 
the case where Honorius publicly gave thanks for the slaughter 
of AUobich. But in such a case the word used would hardly 
be tumultus. We are driven to suppose that the action of 
Aetius was in any case underhand, that he found means to stir 
up the soldiers to the bloody work, without actually ordering 
it in his official character. But this brings the story very near 
to one of those stories of secret intrigue which are always open 
to suspicion. Felix is said to have been plotting against 
Aetius ; Aetius is said to have caused his death in order to 
escape from his plots. Both sayings may have been true ; 
Prosper seems to accept the intrigues of Felix as well as the 
precautionary revenge of Aetius. But we cannot be so certain 
about either as we may be about things that are recorded to 
have been done in broad daylight. 

Our knowledge then seems to come to this. The patrician 
Felix was killed in a tumult of the soldiers. And there was 
at least a general belief that the tumult was the work of the 
magister militum Aetius, and a further belief that this action of 
the magister militum was caused by the discovery (or suspicion) 
of plots on the part of the patrician against himself. And we 
must remember that it is the entry in Idatius which leads us 
to put things in this qualified way ; Prosper alone would have 



344 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

led us to charge Aetius with the death of Felix far more boldly. 
Of the relations between Aetius and Felix we have up to this 
time had no direct mention. Felix has been the home adviser 
of the government of Placidia ; Aetius has been its defender 
against foreign enemies. On the promotion of Felix to 
a higher rank, Aetius succeeds to the vacant office. There is 
nothing in this to suggest enmity. But we know not what 
grudges or jealousies there may have been, and we know from 
the stories of the bishop of Aries and the deacon Titus that 
Felix was at least believed to be capable of bringing about 
men's deaths by secret means. There is nothing unlikely in 
the story of his plots against Aetius or of the action by which 
Aetius stopped them. Only we have no statement of details, 
causes, or results ; and the one thing that gets beyond mere 
likelihood is the slaughter of Felix by the soldiers at Eavenna. 

Prosper has now no entry of the military exploits of Aetius 
tUl we reach the Burgundian war of 435. This last is also 
recorded by Idatius, who further records a Frankish campaign 
in 431. But between these two wars comes the most remark- 
able story of all, in which, for the first and last time, in the 
year 432, the names of Aetius and Boniface are directly 
brought together in any authentic narrative. Now at least we 
see them as enemies. Their enmity is the end of the career 
of Boniface ; it is very far from being the end of the career 
of Aetius. Of his four consulships it is the year of the first, 
that which he shared with Valerius. As his last consulship 
led to his death, so his first led to his momentary fall. The 
story which Procopius heard in Africa sent Boniface to Italy, 
but said nothing as to his fate there. In our best authorities, 
the contemporaiy annals, we have again two versions which it 
may need some little pains to reconcile. Prosper tells us only 
that Boniface came to Eavenna from Africa to receive the rank 
of magister militum, that Aetius withstood him, that he over- 
came Aetius in battle and died of disease a few days later *. 

* "Aetio et Valerio coss. Bonifaeius ab Africa ad Italiam per Urbem 
venit, aecepta magistri militum dignitate ; qui cum sibi resistentem 
Aetium prselio superasset, paucos post dies morbo extinctus est." The 



Appendix I. 345 

Idatius is rather fuller. In his version Boniface at the 
summons of Placidia comes to Ravenna as the rival of Aetius. 
Aetius is deprived of his office, which is given to Boniface. 
A few months later the rivals meet in fight, and Boniface 
receives a wound of which he dies *. From inferior authorities 
we get minuter details. The other Prosper, or Tiro, or what- 
ever we are to call him, says that Aetius, after his consulship 
was over, took himself to strong places to escape Boniface, who 
had been sent for by Placidia. Then comes a fight of some 
kind in which Boniface has the better, but dies of a wound f. 

Another of the endless versions which go under Prosper's 
name cuts the tale down to a few words, but tells us, what no 
other account does, the place of action. Aetius and Boniface 
fought five miles from Ariminum %• Count Marcellinus has 
more remarkable details still. By the stirring up of Placidia 
a great fight or war takes place between the patricians Boniface 
and Aetius. The day before the fight Aetius provides himself 
with a longer weapon than that of Boniface. Boniface is there- 
fore wounded, while Aetius escapes unhurt. Three months 
later Boniface dies, counselling his wealthy wife Pelagia to 
marry no one except Aetius §. 

geography here is remarkable. To go to Italy had, under Honorius and 
Placidia, become so completely the same thing as to go to Ravenna, that 
it was possible to speak of going from Africa to Italy through Rome. 
That was clearly the obvious way to get to Ravenna, as ten years before 
Boniface had gone from Ravenna to Africa by ■gortvis Urbis. In both 
places Ravenna is taken for granted. 

* VIII Honorii ; " Bonifacius in semulationem Aetii de Africa per 
Placidiam evocatus in Italiam ad palatium rediit. Qui depulso Aetio in 
locum ejus succedens, paucis post mensibus, inito adversum Aetium 
conflictu, de vulnere quo fuerat percussus interiit." The " palatium " is 
of course at Ravenna, as before. 

f IX Honorii ; " Consulatu Aetius edito, Bonifacium, qui ab regina 
accitus ex Africa fuerat, declinans, ad munitiora conscendit. Bonifacius 
contra Aetium certamine habito, perculsus, victor quidem sed moriturus 
abscedit." 

J This is the version published by Hille in his Inaugural Dissertation, 
Berlin, 1866, pp. 6, 15 ; "Aetio et Valerie. Pugna facta inter Aetium et 
Bonifacium in V (in quinto) de Arimino." The word "pugna" looks 
rather more like a single combat than some of the words used elsewhere ; 
but it need not imply it. 

§ ' ' Valerie et Aetio coss. Placidiae matris Valentiniani imp. instinctu, 



346 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

Here at last Boniface and Aetius do appear as enemies ; but 
in none of these versions is there any hint as to what made 
them so. Now we should be inclined to accept the story in 
Procopius as supplying us with the cause ; only the story 
in Procopius can hardly be forced into agreement with the 
authentic narrative about Felix and Sigisvult, and it looks 
so very much as if it had arisen out of that narrative. Now 
in such an age as that, perhaps in any age, the two foremost 
men in the state are likely to be rivals ; but up to this time 
there has been no authentic mention of their rivalry ; they 
have been employed in two quite distinct scenes of action. At 
the time of the usurpation of John they were on opposite sides, 
but they did not come across each other. And if Aetius was 
then the rebel and Boniface the loyal commander, since that 
time their parts have been reversed. While Aetius was re- 
storing the power of the empire in Gaul, an army had to be 
sent to Africa to bring Boniface to obedience. And now, at 
the moment when Aetius is promoted to the highest place in 
the republic, seemingly in the very year of his consulship, he is 
deprived of his office of magister militum, and Boniface is sent 
for from Africa to take it in his stead*. And all this was 
a sudden change without any assigned reason ; never do we 
more earnestly wish for some source of knowledge fuller than 
mere annals. As it is, we can only say that in a despotic 
court, anything may happen, and that the very services of 
Aetius and the height of greatness to which he had risen 
might be turned against him. The date seems fixed. The 
consul then, in the year of his consulship, is deprived of his 

ingens bellum inter Bonifacium et Aetium patricios gestum est. Aetius 
longiore Bonifacii telo pridie sibimet praeparato, Bonifacium congre- 
dientem vulneravit illaesus ; tertioque mense Bonifacius vulnere quo 
sauciatus fuerat emoritur, Pelagiam uxorem suam valde locupletem nulli 
alteri nisi Aetio ut nuberet exhortans." Marcellinus is wrong in calling 
Aetius "patricius," which he did not become till the next year, while 
Boniface is not mentioned elsewhere as patrician at all. 

* The statement in the article Bonifacius in the Dictionary of Bio- 
graphy about coins with the head of Boniface is pure misconception. 
The coins, or rather medals, that are meant have nothing to do with any 
Boniface. 



Appendix I. 347 

military dignity, which is given to another ; but he does not 
take the insult quietly : he resists in some way or another ; 
a fight of some kind happens, which is followed by the death 
of Boniface. So far all stories agree : but there is diversity as 
to every detail. Boniface and Aetius meet in fight, but is it in 
single combat, an early case in short of the wager of battle, or 
is the quarrel to be looked on as rising to the scale of a civil 
war ? For the single combat there seems to be hardly anything 
to be called authority. Marcellinus indeed clearly describes 
a single combat between Boniface and Aetius ; but it reads 
like a single combat in a war ; ingens helium, even assuming 
that the later use of bellum could have come in so early, would 
be a strange phrase to describe a single combat only. And the 
other Prosper, who seems to connect the whole matter in some 
not very intelligible way with the appointment of Aetius as 
consul, clearly looked on Aetius as taking warlike precautions 
against Boniface, as occupying strong places, and his account 
of the death of Boniface would be more consistent with 
a general battle (certamen) than with a single combat. When 
we come to the contemporary writers, their language is vague ; 
but there is nothing to suggest the thought of a single combat. 
Pralium and conflidus are words which imply the meeting of 
armies, not the meeting of single men. Boniface, according to 
Prosper, dies of disease, a statement perhaps not inconsistent 
with the version of Idatius that he died of a wound. But 
neither implies that the wound was given by the hand of 
Aetius. That version comes wholly from the account of 
Marcellinus in the next century. It is, I suspect, from his 
chronicle that the whole notion of the single combat has come ; 
certainly no one would think of it from reading Prosper and 
Idatius only. "What they suggest is rather that, after Aetius' 
appointment to the consulship, some dispute arose between 
him and Placidia — that she proposed to deprive him of his 
post as magister militum and to give it to Boniface — that Aetius, 
doubtless with an army in his actual command, withstood the 
transfer of office in arms — that a battle followed, in which 
Boniface had the better, but received a wound of which he 
died. This seems the natural interpretation of the words of 



348 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

our two best authorities, and it gives a story far more likely in 
the fifth century than the story of the single combat. By what 
authority was the single combat to be fought ? Is the empress- 
mother conceived as the queen of beauty presiding over the 
knightly contest ? 

She took their hands ; she led them forth into the court below ; 
She bade the ring be guarded ; she bade the trumpets blow ; 
For lofty place for that stern race the signal she did throw ; 
For truth and right the Lord will fight ; together let them go. 

It is hard to see by what law of Theodosius or of any earlier 
emperor the post of magister militum could be disposed of 
according to the issue of a single combat between the two 
illustrious candidates. Again, how are we to explain the issue 
of the combat ? In Prosper, and in the other Prosper— Prosper 
Tiro — Boniface wins the battle, but dies of a wound received 
in it, a likely enough chance of ordinary warfare. But in 
a single combat, if Aetius, as Marcellinus says, himself unhurt, 
gave Boniface a deadly wound, then surely Aetius was the 
victor in the duel and was entitled to whatever was the prize 
of it. And as such Marcellinus seems to look upon him ; at 
least he says nothing of any victory on the part of Boniface, 
which comes out so strongly in Prosper. Surely the real story 
is that Aetius now, like Boniface five years before, refused 
obedience to the imperial orders when those orders went to 
deprive him of his military post, and that Placidia sent for 
Boniface to bring him to obedience, exactly as Mavortius, 
Galbio, Sinox, and Sigisvult had been sent to bring Boniface 
to obedience. The thought does for a moment flash across the 
mind that in those strange times, where ever and anon some 
ancient form seems again to come into life for a moment, the 
consul of the repubKc may have fallen back on the powers of 
his office in an earlier day. It might too flash across the mind, 
considering the early importance of Aetius at Constantinople, 
that his nomination as consul came from the East, and was in 
some unexplained way unacceptable at Kavenna. The dis- 
pleasure of Placidia is unexplained on any showing, and the 
consulship was the natural reward of the long tale of victories 



Appendix I. 349 

in which Aetius had smitten nation after nation in the West, 
winding up with his great Frankish success the year before *. 
Gaul was for a moment at peace, and the conqueror and consul 
came to wear his laurels in Italy. To be degraded at such 
a moment by the caprice of a woman might stir any captain of 
those days to rebellion. On the whole the story reads far 
more as if the cemulatio Aetii of Idatius was a rivalry, possibly 
an intrigue, on the part of Boniface against Aetius rather than 
a rivalry or intrigue of Aetius against Boniface. 

The best evidence then points to an open war between the 
two great captains. Can we recover any details of the cam- 
paign ? There are several notices which may help us. First 
of all, we may fairly accept the statement of a single annal 
that the fight took place at the fifth milestone from Ariminum. 
No one was likely to indulge in invention on such a point as 
this, while nothing is more easy than for such a small bit of 
geography to be left out. As for the date of the fighting, 
according to the story in Idatius, Boniface, summoned by 
Placidia, displaces Aetius in his office, and some months later 
comes the fight in which Boniface receives his wound. This 
fits in curiously with the saying in the other Prosper about 
Aetius withdrawing before Boniface to strong places. These 
mionths were clearly occupied in preparations ; then Aetijis, 



* Idatius, who has dealings of his own to record, thus brings in his 
eighth year of Valentinian, reckoning, it must be remembered, from the 
death of Honorius, after the manner of Charles the Second and Lewis the 
Eighteenth; "Superatis per Aetium in certamine Francis et in pace 
susceptis, Censorius comes legatus mittitur ad Suevos, supradicto secum 
Idatio redeunte. Bonifacius in aemulationem Aetii," &c. Wietersheim 
(Geschichte der Volkerwanderung, Band iv. p. 307) fully sees that what 
happened was a real battle, and he describes the forces on both sides in 
a way which is very likely in itself, but which it is hard to see in the 
authorities. Of course Aetius is '• der ehrgeizige Feldherr " who " duldete 
keine Nebenbuhler " ; he and Boniface are "die erbitterten Feinde," &c. 
According to this account, "Bonifacius kehrte zwar als Fliichtling, aber 
doch wohl mit einem nicht unbedeutenden Heer, aus Africa nach Italien 
lieim." As for the battle, " wir diirfen des Aetius Niederlage vielleicht 
durch sein schwacheres Heer, dessen grosster Theil in Gallien geblieben 
sein mag, und durch die besten Haustruppen der Kaiserin, welche dem 
Bonifacius iiberlassen worden sein mogen, erklaren." 



350 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

whether constrained or of his own will, leaves his strong 
places to meet his enemy in battle. He is defeated, but the 
victorious Boniface presently dies. As to his curious instruc- 
tions to his wife, the wife whom, according to Augustine, he 
ought not to have married, we can say nothing. If we accept 
it, it can only be quia impossibile. What could have put it into 
anybody's head ? It might seem a singular piece of advice, 
even if Aetius had been a single man or a widower. But it 
seems to go beyond all bounds of credible impossibility when 
we remember that Aetius had a very powerful, though nameless 
wife, daughter of G-othic kings and perhaps already aspiring to 
be mother of Eoman emperors. 

Let us look on a step further to the events that followed the 
fight and the death of Boniface. It is to be noticed that Mar- 
cellinus, who gives us the single combat and the instructions to 
Pelagia, has nothing to tell us as to what immediately followed. 
But the earlier writers have a good deal to say as to the im- 
mediate results of the quarrel, and from one of them we can 
perhaps learn what it was that put the notion of a single 
combat into anybody's head. Let us again compare our 
authorities. 

Prosper is the fullest. According to him, Aetius, having 
lost or laid down his office, was living on his own estate. 
There a nameless enemy attempts a sudden attack on him. 
He then flees to Eome and thence to Dalmatia ; from Dalmatia 
he goes to the Huns by way of Pannonia. He is still in good 
favour with his old friends ; by their help, in some shape or 
other, he is restored to the favour of Placidia and Valentirdan, 
and receives again the office that he had lost. After this 
Prosper does not mention Aetius again, except in relation to 
Gaulish affairs ; he does not even record his death. In his 
annals the third consulship is a blank. But it is to be noticed 
that in 439 he gives Aetius the title of patrician, and that 
in 440, when speaking of Gaiseric's inroads in Sicily, he 
mentions that Gaiseric went back to Carthage, because 
Sebastian, a man skilled in war, had gone from Spain into 
Africa. He goes on to speak, but darkly, of the relations 
between Gaiseric and Sebastian and of the end of Sebastian. 



Appendix I. 351 

But there is nothing in his account to imply that Sebastian 
had anything to do with the affairs of Aetius and Boniface *. 

The account of Idatius lets us know that the Sebastian of 
Prosper's later story had a good deal to do with both Boniface 
and Aetius. He is the son-in-law of Boniface, and on his 
father-in-law's death he is appointed to his office, that of 
magister militum. But, being overcome by Aetius, he is driven 
from the palace at Ravenna. Aetius is restored to his old 
post ; the next year he is raised to the rank of patrician. Of 
Aetius Idatius has nothing more to say — except in Gaul, where 
he has a good deal — till he records his last exploits and his 
death. But he has a great deal to tell us about the singular 
career of Sebastian. He flees to Constantinople, an event 
which may seem to be connected with the higher promotion 
of Aetius. The later entries about Sebastian do not greatly 
concern us. Only they go some way to explain the dark entry 
about him in Prosper. After very strange goings to and fro, 
he was put to death by Gaiseric, according to some accounts, 
as a Catholic martyr f. 

The other Prosper has nothing to say about Sebastian, but 



* Immediately after the death of Boniface, Prosper goes on, "Aetius 
vero, cum deposita potestate in agro suo degeret, ibique eum quidam 
inimicus ejus repentino incursu opprimere tentasset, profugus ad urbem, 
atque illinc ad Dalmatiam, deinde per Pannoniam ad Hunnos pervenit, 
quorum amicitia auxilioque usus, pacem principum et jus interpolatae 
potestatis obtinuit." In 440, Valentiniano Augusto V et Anatolio coss., 
after a casual mention of Aetius in Gaul, we read, "Geisericus Siciliam 
graviter affligens, accepto nuntio de Sebastiani ab Hispania ad Africam 
transitu, celeriter Carthaginem rediit, ratus periculosum sibi ac suis fore 
si vir bellandi peritus recipiendae Carthagini incubuisset. Verum ille 
amicum se magis quam hostem videri volens, diversa omnia apud barbari 
animum quam praesumpserat repperit, eaque spes causa illi maxima et 
calamitatis et infelicissimas mortis fuit." 

t Immediately after the death of Boniface, Idatius goes on, " Cui [Boni- 
facio] Sebastianus gener substitutus per Aetium de palatio superatus 
expellitur." The next year " Aetius dux utriusque militiae patrieiua 
appellatur," and the next year " Sebastianus exsul et profugus effectus, 
navigat ad palatium Orientis." Other entries about him come in 444 and 
450. A full account of his martyrdom is given in Victor Vitensis i. 19. 
He is there "Sebastianus famosi illius gener comitis Bonifatii, acer 
cousilio et strenuus in bello." This is Victor's only mention of Boniface. 



352 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

he has a great deal more to say about the Huns. After the 
battle with Boniface, Aetius flees to the Hunnish king Kugila, 
and asks his help. By that help he enters the Eoman terri- 
tory ; then the Goths are called to give help against him by 
the Eomans. In the next year Aetius is restored to favour, 
and peace is made with Eugila, who dies *. 

Marcellinus has no further mention of Aetius till the time 
of his death. He in no way connects Sebastian with Aetius ; 
but he mentions the flight of Sebastian from Constantinople 
and his death in Africa, seemingly bringing the two events 
too near together f. 

When we come to compare these statements, there is no 
kind of contradiction between Prosper and Idatius. Each 
account is strangely imperfect, but each fills up gaps in the 
other. Prosper does not tell us what became of the office of 
magister militum, of which Aetius had been deprived to make 
room for Boniface, and which now again became vacant by the 
death of Boniface. We learn from Idatius that it was given 
to Sebastian, son-in-law of Boniface, husband, that must be, of 
a daughter of that earlier marriage of which Saint Augustine 
did not wholly disapprove. He tells us also that Aetius was 
able in some way or other to dispossess Sebastian. Prosper, 
though not mentioning Sebastian at this stage, tells us how 
Aetius came to dispossess him, and gives us some very curious 
details. Aetius for a moment withdraws into private life, but 
we raay guess not without a purpose of coming back to the 
affairs of the world whenever he might have a chance. No 
longer magister militum, having been deprived of the office and 
having failed in his attempt to recover it in arms — for the 
death of Boniface after the battle must not make us forget the 
defeat of Aetius in the battle — he has no armies to command 

* The death of Boniface is placed in the ninth year of Theodosius, 
according to his reckoning. Thus we read ; "X. Cum ad Chunnorum 
gentem, cui tunc Eugila prseerat, post prselium se Aetius contulisset, 
impetrato auxilio ad Komanum solum regreditur. Gothi ad ferendum 
auxilium a Eomanis acciti. XI. Aetius in gratiam receptus. Eugila rex 
Chunnorum, cum quo pax firmata, moritur, cui Bleda successit." He 
says nothing more about Aetius till the year of his death. 

t Under 435 " Theodosio XY et Valentiniano IV coss." 



Appendix I. 353 

in Gaul, and he must have thought that it suited his purpose 
to stay for a while to watch the course of things in Italy 
rather than to risk an immediate attempt at seizing power in 
Gaul. He is clearly not harshly treated, as far as any public 
dealings went, by the court of Eavenna. He is allowed to 
withdraw to his private estate ; he therefore had, as was 
likely enough, lands in Italy. While he is dwelling there 
a treacherous attempt is made on his life, whether by any 
secret commission from Placidia, Valentinian, or Sebastian, we 
have no means of judging. It reminds one of the attempt 
on Alkibiades which Tissaphernes did order, and of the 
attempt on Hereward, which William did not. On the whole, 
without setting up Placidia very high, one had rather not 
fancy her practising the arts of Fredegund. Anyhow Aetius 
is more lucky than either Alkibiades or Hereward ; he escapes 
with life. Now surely we have here the kernel of truth out 
of which grew the legend of the single combat between 
Boniface and Aetius. Here is a personal attempt on Aetius, 
made, not by an army, but by one man or a few. In such 
a case something very like a single combat might easily take 
place ; there are plenty of stories of the kind, the two to which 
I have just referred among them. Nothing could be easier 
than to mix up this story with that of the battle with Boni- 
face. Aetius and Boniface met in fight ; Aetius and somebody 
met in single combat ; it was a slight change to make Aetius 
and Boniface meet in single combat. This seems likely enough 
to be the explanation of the story ; but, of course, such an 
explanation is not needed for the general course of events. 
Anyhow, after the attempt on his life Aetius no longer thinks 
himself safe in Italy or anywhere in the Eoman dominions ; 
he must seek the help of the same barbarian friends whom he 
had seven years before brought to support the cause of John. 
We know not in what part of Italy his estate lay, but clearly 
somewhere where the haven of Eome was the nearest or safest 
point to take ship. In any case he takes a roundabout way to 
get to the Huns. The land journey through northern Italy 
might have brought him dangerously near to Eavenna. He 
therefore flees to Eome, clearly to set sail from Portus : he 



354 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

makes the long voyage to Dalmatia, and so goes to the Huns. 
By their 'friendship and help,' M'hatever those words may 
imply, he procures his restoration to imperial favour and to 
his old oflSce ; this of course implies the deprivation of Se- 
bastian, the one point recorded by Idatius. 

Now what was the form of this Hunnish friendship and 
help, by which a Eoman consul or consular is restored to 
a Eoman office ? Are we to think of Hunnish diplomacy as 
thus powerful, or did Aetius again bring a Hunnish force 
into the erapire ? It is at least certain that, if Placidia or 
hex- advisers yielded to Hunnish diplomacy, it could have been 
only because Hunnish diplomacy was ready to be backed by 
Hunnish force. The words in which Idatius records the re- 
moval of Sebastian, superatus expellHur, look very much like 
actual force. The fullest account is that of the other Prosper, 
to which we must give such an amount of trust as we may 
think good. This version does not necessarily imply an actual 
war, but it does imply a state of things on the very brink of 
war. A Hunnish invasion must have been looked for as very 
near when Gothic allies — West-Goths used to fight against 
Aetius — were summoned to give help to Kome. Goth and 
Eoman might have met the Hun on other fields than the 
Catalaunian, in strife in which Aetius and Theodoric could 
not have fought side by side. If things had gone so far as 
this, we should surely have heard of it. Aetius ' came back 
to Eoman soil by help of the Huns ' ; but this might surely 
be said though the action of the Huns did not go beyond 
a threatened march to the frontier, and though the summons 
to the Goths was not actually followed by their presence in 
Italy. Surely both dangers were avoided by the simpler 
process of receiving Aetius to his favour and displacing 
Sebastian from his office. We must not press the words 
superatus and expelUtur too far ; they look like force, but they 
do not absolutely prove it. At any rate the entries in Idatius 
show that Sebastian, though driven from the palace, remained 
for a while in Italy. It is only the next year that Aetius rises 
to the full height of the patriciate, and it is not till the year 
after that that Sebastian flees to Constantinople as an exile. 



Appendix I. 355 

One is tempted to go on with the singular and striking story 
of Sebastian ; but from this point it really has no bearing on 
the story or character of Aetius. More important is the fact, 
which we must take from the other Prosper, that a peace with 
the Huns followed the restoration of Aetius. There had 
therefore been a previous state of war, though not necessarily 
any actual fighting, and it seems plain that the restoration 
of Aetius was one of the conditions of peace. But we can 
perhaps find another. In the casual allusion of the best 
authority on Hunnish matters, that Priscus to whom we owe 
our living picture of Attila and his household, we hear of 
a peace of Aetius — like a peace of Nikias or of Antalkidas — by 
which Pannonia on the Save, that is most likely the land 
between Save and Drave, was given up to the Hun *. This 
peace was the last act of Eugila ; he died to make way for 
Bleda and the mightier name of Attila. We see its fruits 
in the friendly relations so long kept up between Aetius and 
the Huns. Three years later than his return in 435, when 
he smites the Burgundians, the Huns come on to finish his 
work f. It is in his second consulship in 437 that the Gothic 
war is carried on by Hunnish help t. It is he who provides 
Attila with a Eoman secretary §, who receives from Attila 
the singular gift of a Moorish dwarf and jester ||, and when 
Valentinian sends an embassy to Attila, the Greek narrator 
of the event instinctively puts the name of Aetius before the 



* Priscus, 146, 147 ; COpicrrrjs) wKei t^v irpbs rw "Xao) noranw Haidvcuv xupav, 
T(3 Pappapw KarcL ras 'Aeriov ffrpaTTjyov rwv effnepicDU 'Vcap-aiaiv avvBifKas 
inraKovovaav. Priscus, chiefly dealing with the affaii's of the East, has to 
distinguish this treaty, then clearly of some standing, from the diplomacy 
of Theodosius and of Aetius himself in 448. Haiovis is of course high- 
polite for Pannonians. 

t See Prosper, 435 ; " Theod. XV et Val. IV coss." 

t lb., 437 ; "Aetio II et Sigisvulto coss. Bellum adversus Gothos 
Hunnis auxiliantibus geritur." 

§ Priscus, 176, 208. 

II See his story in Priscus, pp. 205, 225 (Souidas in Zepicwv). He 
belonged to Aspar ; he was taken by the Huns in an inroad into Thrace ; 
he became a favourite with Bleda, was inherited by Attila, given by him 
to Aetius, and by him back to his old master Aspar. 

A a 2 



356 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

name of his master *. We should hardly have looked to see 
the crowning glory of his life in warfare in which the first 
great check is given to the advance of the Hunnish power. 

It certainly seems to me that, by thus carefully turning our 
authorities inside out, we come to a narrative of events which 
differs a good deal from that which has been commonly received. 
Some parts of the real story have dropped out of notice. Such 
is all that concerns Castinus, Felix, and Sigisvult, and the 
relations of either Aetius or Boniface to any of those persons. 
The remarkable language of the annalists as to the position of 
Boniface in Africa, the undoubted fact of his resistance to the 
imperial orders, and the war which was therefore waged against 
him as a public enemy, have passed out of sight ; so has the 
death of Felix and the share of Aetius in it. These are points 
of some importance both for the story and for the character of 
the two chief men ; but they seem to have been very early 
forgotten. Instead of them we get the legend of the com- 
plicated intrigues of Aetius against Boniface, of the treasonable 
dealings of Boniface with Gaiseric, and of his later repentance. 
We have seen that for the intrigues of Aetius there is no real 
evidence, that the dealings of Boniface with Gaiseric, though 
likely enough, are very doubtful, and that, if they happened at 
all, they were caused, not by any plots of Aetius, but by the 
war declared against Boniface during the ministry of Felix. 
We come to the end of the joint career of the two men, and we 
find the main authority for the earlier legend silent, while 
another later writer supplies a romantic story of a single combat 
which has displaced the actual battle of the earlier annalists. 
I think I may claim — unless I have been forestalled at Dorpat — 
to have put the story together for the first time in its truth and 
fulness ; but I must again repeat that the modern German 
writers, though they have, to my thinking, not made all that 
should have been made of the genuine materials, have by no 
means neglected them. I have to thank them for some refer- 

* Priscus, 186 ; Trpea^eis Ttapa 'AeTiov koI tov PaaiXevovros ruv effTrepicai/ 
'Pojfiaiwv laraXTjaav. Did he not know Valentinian's name ? 



Appendix I. 357 

ences which I might not have lighted upon for myself. All 
that I complain of is that they confuse the story by bringing 
in the details of the Procopian legend as of equal authority with 
the contemporary annalists. And I believe that every entry of 
the annalists and every scrap of information about the matter 
to be found in any quarter has been brought together by 
Tillemont. Nothing ever escaped the notice of that most 
careful and valuable scholar ; only in his simple good faith, he 
sometimes tried to believe two stories when it was impossible 
to believe both at the same time. 

And now as to the characters of the two men with whom we 
have been dealing. Boniface we certainly leave a little in the 
dark. Our personal picture of him comes from Saint Augustine. 
It is that of a man who sets out with the highest promise, 
private and public, but who falls away from his duties, private 
and public. At one time almost a saint, with some tendency 
to become a monk, he sins against ecclesiastical rules, perhaps 
against moral rules also. At one time the model of a Roman 
officer, he neglects his duties in that character also, and leaves 
his province to be harried by barbarians. This is how Boniface 
appears in the letters of Augustine ; only the legend has so 
taken hold of men's minds that, when Augustine writes about 
native Africans, they have chosen to read about Vandals. The 
picture drawn by Augustine is a very natural one ; Boniface 
appears as one of the many men whose early days were their 
best. A more minute examination of the facts brings out 
nothing to set aside the witness of Augustine ; it simply gives 
the political errors of Boniface a somewhat different character 
from that which they put on in the common story. While the 
charge of treasonable dealings with foreign enemies must be 
pronounced uncertain, we must charge him with distinct dis- 
obedience to his sovereign, and with neglect of official duty in 
a province which there is some reason to think that he had 
occupied irregularly. In his public character, in short, he is the 
man of the fifth century. In that ever-shifting age of revolu- 
tions, we cannot look for the same kind of loyalty, the same 
unswerving obedience to lawful authority, which we look for 



358 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

either in a citizen of the old Eoman commonwealth or in the 
subject of a modern constitutional state. Boniface was at least 
not below the common standard of his contemporaries ; he was 
very likely above it. He really did nothing very memorable 
after his exploit at Massalia ; his name has simply drawn to 
itself a special interest, partly from the legend of his relations 
to Aetius, partly also from his relations to Augustme. In this 
latter aspect he comes home to us in a way in which few 
captains of his age can come *. Of Aetius, of most other men 
of the time, we do not in the same way know either the private 
virtues or the private sins. 

Whatever allowances we make for Boniface we must make 
for Aetius also. He also is a raan of the fifth century, and is 
assuredly not free from the common faults of the fifth century. 
Only the faults which real history shows in him are not the 
same as those which we hear of in the legend. In the legend 
he appears as a man of subtle and unscrupulous intrigue. 
There is nothing like this in the genuine story ; for we should 
hardly speak in this way of the wonderful diplomatic power 
which ever enabled him to bring some powerful ally to his side, 
which could bring the Hun to act against the Groth and the 
Goth to act against the Hun. His fault is the natural fault of 
a man in his position. Knowing his strength, both in himself 
and in the powers that he could call upon, he is too ready to 
appeal to force. In this he is simply the man of his time, 
neither better nor worse than Boniface. His rebellions, if they 
are to be so called, strike us more than the rebellion of Boniface, 
simply because his position allowed them to be wrought on 
a greater scale and to win greater success. If Aetius brought 
barbarian allies to decide Eoman quarrels, it was no more than 
every man of his time, sovereign or subject, did if he had the 
chance. Indeed, if men were to fight at aU, it was hardly 
possible for them to fight without barbarian allies. All wars 
of the time were fought with their help. When Aetius calls 

* Unless indeed we remember that Dardanus, of whom Sidonius (Ep. 
V. 9) had so very bad an opinion, was also a friend and correspondent of 
the saint. There is a letter (Ep. Ivii. or 187) in which Augustine discusses 
theology with him as freely as he does with Boniface. 



Appendix I. 359 

in the Huns, all that Placidia can do is to call in the Goths. 
And if, with our notions, it seems uglier to call in Huns than 
to call in Goths, we can hardly expect the men of the fifth 
century to enter minutely into such distinctions, especially as 
Goth and Hun alike were called in simply as allies or 
mercenaries. Neither side does anything towards bringing in 
a Hunnish or Gothic dominion, though of course it was always 
possible that such thoughts might come into the minds of the 
Hunnish or Gothic allies themselves. And we may remark 
further that, though Aetius several times appeals to force against 
the measures of the reigning emperor, he never appeals to it to 
supplant the reigning emperor. When many a man, with such 
powers at his call as Aetius had, would at once have aimed at 
the tyranny, Aetius is satisfied with being restored to his old 
office. If at an earlier stage he appears as the supporter of 
a tyranny, it was at least not a tyranny in his own person, and 
we must remember that John, like so many others, is called 
tyrant and not emperor simply because he was unsuccessful. 
The only thing in the authentic story which looks the least like 
intrigue, as the intrigues of Aetius are commonly painted, is 
the story of the death of Felix. If that is intrigue, it is force 
as well ; but we hardly know enough of the details to pass any 
judgement. We can only say that Aetius got rid of a man 
whom he deemed to be dangerous in some way which can 
hardly fail to have been irregular. 

On the whole, Aetius comes out from his cross-examination 
as certainly something very unlike a faultless hero. All that 
we can say for him is that he is certainly not worse, that on 
the whole he is better, than the received standard of his time. 
He has the greatest opportunities of any man of his time, and, 
on the whole, for that time, he does not use them amiss. Of 
his opportunities for good he avails himself more than other 
men, of his opportunities for evil he avails himself less. We 
may fairly say that he is loyal to the empire and the emperor, 
even though he is fully determined to maintain, by force if need 
be, his own claim to be the first subject in the empire. The 
only act that looks like disloyalty to the republic itself is the 
cession of a certain Pannonian district to the Huns. Most 



360 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

likely this was simply giving the Hunnish king a legal posses- 
sion of a land which was already his for all purposes of plunder 
and havoc. By such a cession the sufferings of the Koman 
inhabitants of that land, if any were left, were pretty sure to 
be lessened. Except with a people who are ready to defend 
every inch of ground at the sword's point, the acknowledged 
mastery even of the Hun or the Turk is commonly a less evil 
than his ceaseless inroads from outside. 

Of the two men with whose names we started, the career of 
Boniface is over ; the most brilliant time of the career of Aetius 
is yet to come. Of his Gaulish career I hope to speak in another 
shape. We may then trace him alike in the dry entries of the 
annalists and in the sounding verse of the prelate of Auvergne. 
We may count up how often he beat back the Goth from 
imperial Aries, how he smote the Burgundian and taught the 
Frank to know his master. We may then dwell on that clearer 
tribute to the stoutest champion of Rome which the annalist 
pays when he takes for granted that, if Gaiseric could tear away 
Carthage from the republic, it was only because the sword of 
Aetius was busy against other foes in Gaul *. We may then 
tell of the great triumph of his diplomacy, when, like Demo- 
sthenes on his errand to Thebes, like Gellius Egnatius on his 
errand to Etruria f, he won his enemies to march at his side 
against their former allies. We may tell of the first and 
greatest European concert, when Eoman and Goth and Frank 
— Catholic, Arian, and heathen— when Briton and Saxon, allies 
for a moment on Gaulish soil J, went forth together at the 
bidding of the last Eoman of the West §. We may then tell 
how Saint Anian looked forth from the battlements of Orleans, 

* Prosper; " Theodosio XVII et Festo coss. (439). Aetio rebus quae in 
Galliis componebantur intento, Geisericus, de cujus amicitia nihil metue- 
batur, [XIV Kal. Nov.] Carthaginem dolo pacis invadit." 

-(- Arnold's Eome, ii. cap. xxxiii. p. 331. 

X See the list in Jordanis, Getica, 36; "Adfuerunt aiixiliares Franci, 
Sarmatse, Armoriciani, Liticiani, Burgundiones, Saxones, Ripari, Oli- 
briones." 

§ One may here fairly give Aetius the title that Procopius has devised 
for him, though not without some memories of Syagrius and iEgidius. 



Appendix I. 361 

like our own Wulfstan from, the battlements of Worcester*, 
and how the armies of the world met to take their fill of the 
joys of battle on the day of the Catalaunian fields. That was 
the day of the crowning glory of Aetius, the day of the great 
salvation wrought by him for all the Grauls, and for all the 
peoples, nations, and languages, that dwelt within their borders. 
Let the Goth serve the Eoman or the Eoman serve the Goth, 
rather than that both should see their common heritage 
trampled down by the horse-hoofs of the spoiler in whose track 
grass grows no more. But was the deliverance of Gaul only 
a step towards the more cruel harrying of Italy? We have 
heard how Aquileia was to fall and Venice was to rise, and how 
the Hun was to be turned away from Eome, not by the sword 
of Aetius the patrician, but by the voice of Leo the bishop. 
There is too a strange sound of complaint in the annals of the 
year which followed the victory of victories, as we read them 
in our Aquitanian guide. We hear how Attila, after losing his 
forces in Gaul, came again with new forces into Italy, how 
Aetius — ''Aetius our leader," the annalist still calls him in 
fondness — did nothing worthy of the renown of the year that 
was past, how the very passes of the Alps were left unguarded, 
how the only counsel that the patrician could give to his 
sovereign was that they should both flee from Italy, how all 
that could be devised by the wisdom of prince and senate and 
people was that an embassy should be sent to ward off the 
wrath of the terrible foe. That was the embassy of the holy 
pontiff and his companions, famous in history, more famous in 
legend, most famous of all in the limner's craft f. At all this 



* Jordanis, Getica, 39 ; " Ad certaminis hujus gaudia." 
f Prosper here (452, " Herculano et Sporatio coss."), as in some other 
places towards the end of his story, seems almost to forget his character 
as an annalist, and indulges in the singular vein of complaint and com- 
mentary which I have tried to analyze. Attila comes "nihil duce nostro 
Aetio secundum prioris belli opera prospiciente, ita ut ne clusuris quidem 
Alpium, quibus hostes prohiberi poterant, uteretur, hoc solum spei suis 
superesse existimans, si ab omni Italia cum imperatore discederet." He 
adds, "cum hoc plenum dedecoris et periculi videretui", continuit vere- 
cundia metum." Presently "nihil inter omnia consilia principis ac 
senatus populique Bomani salubrius visum est quam ut per legates pax 



362 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

Prosper wondered, and, if we accept his tale, we can only 
wonder too. "We can only ask why Aetius left Italy to its fate, 
with as little hope of a full and perfect answer as when we ask 
why Heraclius left Jerusalem and Alexandria to their fate. Or 
may it be that there is no need for wonder ? There is a counter- 
story from another annalist who has preserved to us the memory 
of many of the earlier exploits of Aetius. In the version of 
Idatius, Attila enters Italy, but he is driven to make peace 
with the empire by the sufferings which his army endures 
through a combination of causes, human and divine. Some die 
of hunger, some of disease, some by direct strokes from heaven ; 
but most of aU by the armies sent from the East, where the 
energetic Marcian now reigned — armies which Aetius again led 
to victory *. Which of these two contradictory versions are we 
to believe ? 

On the side of Prosper there is that commonly safe rule, 
a rule of such constant application in the earlier Eoman history, 
which makes us always distrust stories of victories which have 
the air of being invented, perhaps to balance or conceal actual 
defeats, perhaps merely to get rid of the shame of simple 
inaction or other more negative kinds of ill-success. The 
victory recorded by Idatius might be a little discredited even 
if the year was a blank in Prosper ; it seems to be yet more 
discredited when Prosper makes a positive complaint of the 
inaction of Aetius. Yet both annalists are very trustworthy ; 
each often leaves things out ; we have never had need to 

truculentissimi regis expeteretur." Then follows the embassy of Leo, 
Avienus, and Trigetius ; and in the end "rex gavisus est ut et bello 
abstineri prseciperet et ultra Danubium promissa pace discederet." Jor- 
danis (Getica, 41, 42) tells essentially the same story with some further 
details, specially that Attila threatened to come back, unless Honoria 
was sent to him. In neither is there any hint of warlike action on the 
part of Aetius, Marcian, or any one on the Eoman side, 

* Idatius, XXIX Valentiniani ; " Secundo regni anno principis Mar- 
ciani, Hunni qui Italiam praedabantur, aliquantis etiam civitatibus 
irruptis, divinitus partim fame, partim morbo quodam, plagis cselestibus 
feriuntur ; missis etiam per Marcianum principem Aetio duce eaeduntur 
auxiliis ; pariterque in sedibus suis et caalestibus plagis et per Marciani 
subiguntur exercitum ; et ita subacti, pace facta cum Eomanis, proprias 
universi repetiint sedes, ad quas rex eorum Attila mox rerersus interiit." 



Appendix L 363 

suspect either of inventing. And a Spanish bishop had no 
particular temptation to invent a deliverance of Italy by the 
means of armies sent by the Eastern emperor. After all, it is 
possible that we need not suspect anything more than what we 
have several times seen already, that one annalist preserves 
part of the story and the other another. We must conceive 
Aetius in Italy ; but we must not conceive of him as at the 
head of forces such as those which he commanded in Gaul. 
His Goths and Franks, his Britons and Saxons, did not follow 
him beyond the Alps. The Goths at least were acting by 
imperial authority against a nearer enemy, Thorismund had 
succeeded the Theodoric who fell in the great battle — that 
first Theodoric from whom Aetius had so often delivered Aries. 
Thorismund had been slain by his brothers Theodoric and 
Frederic, and Frederic was now, by imperial commission, 
putting down the Bagaudas south of the Pyrenees *. Aetius 
may have been really unable to put Italy into any state of 
defence tiU he received help from the East. That he thought 
of flight, that he counselled flight to Valentinian, conies under 
the head, not of facts open to all men, but of whispered sur- 
mises, as to which neither Prosper's statement nor that of 
anybody else goes for much. If troops did come from the 
East, if Aetius acted successfully against Attila, it is certainly 
strange that Prosper should not only have left out all mention 
of the fact, but should have spoken as he did about Aetius' 
earlier conduct. But it would be yet more strange if the 
statement of Idatius about the Eastern troops is all invention 
or delusion. A more serious difficulty is to reconcile a dis- 
comfiture of Attila, whether through natural or military causes, 
with the story of the embassy of Pope Leo and his colleagues 
Avienus and Trigetius, an embassy of which Idatius seems to 
know nothing. Of the reality of that embassy, witnessed by 
Prosper and by Priscus as represented by Jordanis, there can 
be no doubt ; but it is quite possible that its circumstances 

* Idatius records the murder of Thorismund under the twenty-ninth 
year of Valentinian, and in the next says ; "Per Fredericum Theudorici 
regis fratrem Bacaudae Tarraconenses caeduntur ex auctoritate Komana." 
This is the year of the death of Aetius. 



364 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

may have been misunderstood. It takes something away from 
the beauty of the story, but it adds to its likelihood as an 
historical fact, if we believe that the holy awe inspired by the 
pontiff was backed, not only by the arguments of his lay com- 
rades, the ex-consul and the ex-praefeet, but by the more 
powerful argument of disease and hunger in his army, of the 
presence of Aetius in Italy at the head of the army of the 
East, and of the daring diversion on the Hunnish lands which 
another army of the East was making now the East had again 
a wise and watchful emperor. 

And now we come to the last act of all, to the fourth 
consulship of Aetius, the last year of his power and of his 
life. The end of Aetius is in many things like the end of 
Stilicho, only Valentinian, unlike Honorius, had at least energy 
enough to do his crimes with his own hand. With Honorius 
indeed there is always the question whether we are to look on 
him as an accountable being or not. That Valentinian slew 
Aetius — that, according to the best accounts, he slew him with 
his own hands — that, as Sidonius puts it, 

"AetiTim Placid us mactavit semivir aniens *" — 

that the act was the act of one who, as the story pithily puts 
it, cuts off his right hand with his left f — so far all are agreed. 
About the circumstances, motives, and instigators of the act 
there is less agreement. It is to be noticed that the first fall 
and the death of Aetius, with two-and-twenty years between 
them, both come when he is in the height of power and glory. 
In his first consulship Placidia suddenly turns against him ; 
the war with Boniface follows, and on that the attempt on 
Aetius' life and the other stirring events of the year. In his 
last consulship the son of Placidia suddenly turns against him ; 
no war follows ; but the attempt on his life is repeated success- 

* Panegyric on Avitus, 359. 

•f" Bell. Vand. i. 4 (p. 329) ; 'Poj/taiW tis eTros diruv evSoKifXTjaev. kpofievov 
yap avTov ^affiXecos et ol icaXws 6 tov 'Aeriov Oavaros epyaffOeirj, dneicpivaTO A67a)j' 
oiiK «xf' /*«'' elSepcu tovto fire ev eiVe vrj aWrj avrai eipyaarai, iKtivo fxivroi ws 
apiara k^imcrTaadai on avrov ttjv Se^tav rfj krkpq x*'P' oMoniiMV eiTj. 'Pcu/iaiwv 
Tis here means a local Roman. 



Appendix I. 365 

fully, for it is the emperor himself who attempts it. Aetius 
had escaped from meaner assassins at Constantinople and at 
some unknown place in Italy ; in Eome he could not escape 
the weapon wielded by the hand of Augustus. For now we 
are at Rome ; the Eternal City has again for a while come 
to the front ; Valentinian has forsaken his mother's Eavenna, 
and keeps his court in the old home of empire. As to the 
causes which made Valentinian the enemy of the consul of 
454 we are not so utterly in the dark as we were as to the 
causes which made Placidia the enemy of the consul of 432. 
Let us follow the account of Prosper. A fierce quarrel arises 
between the emperor and the consul and patrician out of 
a cause which the annalist says ought to have been a cause 
of friendship, an agreement, it would seem, for the marriage 
of their children *. Valentinian, we know, had daughters ; 
Aetius had sons ; it is impossible not to connect this notice 
of Prosper with the hints in Sidonius which have been already 
referred to about the wife of Aetius — there is nothing said 
about Aetius himself — seeking the empire for her son Grau- 
dentius f. Here is another point of likeness to Stilicho ; he too 
was believed to be seeking the empire for his son Eucherius. 
It is easy to believe that the agreements and oaths of which 
Prosper speaks as concluded between Valentinian and Aetius 
may have had something to do with some scheme, not only 
for a marriage between Gaudentius and one of the emperor's 
daughters, but for securing to them the succession to the 
empire or an association in it. Such a scheme might come 
naturally when Aetius was at the height of his glory, patrician, 
four times consul, deliverer of Gaul, perhaps deliverer of Italy. 
But no scheme would be more likely to stir up the jealousy of 
Valentinian, already perhaps disposed to envy and hate Aetius 
on the very ground of his greatness and glory. Valentinian 

* Prosper ; " Aetio et Studio coss. Inter Valentinianum Augustum et 
Aetiiim patricium, post promissa inTicem fidei sacramenta, post pactum 
de conjunctione filiorum, dirae inimicitiae convaluerunt, et undo fuit 
gratia charitatis augenda, inde exarsit fomes odiorum, incentore, ut 
creditum est, Heraclio spadone, qui ita sibi imperatoris animum insincero 
famulatu astrinxerat ut eum facile in quae vellet impelleret." 

f See above, p. 319, note %. 



366 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

would most likely have no more fondness for successors, col- 
leagues, and sons-in-law, than Charles of Burgundy had. 
Valentinian, according to Prosper, was, like so many other 
princes, under the dominion of an eunuch named Heraclius, 
who stirred him up against Aetius, and made him believe that 
his only hope for safety was to forestall the plot of his supposed 
enemy by his destruction *. Then comes the end. Aetius is 
in the palace. He demands the fulfilment of the emperor's 
promises : he presses the claims of his son, whatever they were, 
with vehemence. Then he is slain, Valentinian, it would seem, 
dealing the first blow, and those who stood by finishing the 
work with their swords. Boetius the praetorian praefect is 
killed at the same time, his crime being firm friendship for 
Aetius f. 

Idatius tells us that Aetius was by guile invited alone to the 
palace, and there killed by the hand of the emperor himself. 
Other honourable men were brought in one by one, and killed 
by his spatJiarius t- As to the cause, he gives a dark hint in 
his entry for the next year, namely that the wicked counsels of - 
Petronius Maximus had something to do with the deaths of 
all these persons §. Marcellinus also, in the same incidental 
way, attributes the deed to Maximus. He says that Aetius 
and his friend Boetius were both killed in the palace by the 
emperor. He laments the fall of Aetius with much rhetoric ; 

* Prosper, u. s. ; "Cum ergo Heraclius sinistra omnia imperatori de 
Aetio persuaderet, hoc unum creditum est saluti principis profuturuni, si 
inimici molitiones suo opera praeoecupasset." 

f lb. ; " Aetius dum placita instantius repetit, et causam filii com- 
motius agit, imperatoris manu et circumstantium gladiis crudeliter 
confectus est ; Boethio prsefecto prsetorio simul perempto, qui eidem 
multa amicitia copulabatur." "Placita" must here mean a meeting or 
interview, as often in Grregory of Tours. 

X Idatius, XXX Val. ; " Aetius dux et patricius fraudulenter singularis 
accitus intra palatium manu ipsius Valentinian! imperatoris occiditur. 
Et cum ipso per spatarium ejus aliqui singulariter intromissi jugulantur 
honorati." Is "honorati" here to be taken in a technical sense ? and the 
" spatharius " seems to come in early, 

§ " Valentiniano VIII et Anthemio coss. (455). . Qui [Maximus] . . . non 
sero documento quid animi haberet probavit, siquidem interfectores 
Valentiniani, non solum non plecterit, sed etiam in amicitiam receperit." 
He goes on about Eudoxia. Prosper. Aq. 



Appendix I. 367 

he was the great salvation of the Western republic, the terror 
of King Attila ; with him fell the Hesperian realm, and it had 
never risen again down to his own day *. 

The introduction of Petronius Maximus at once brings us 
to the account in Procopius. He brings the death of Aetius 
into his doubtful story about Valentinian and the wife of 
Maximus f. According to Procopius the murder of Aetius is 
part of a very subtle scheme of vengeance by which Maximus 
wishes to repay his own wrongs on Valentinian. He wishes to 
be emperor himself, and thinks that he will be more likely 
to succeed if Aetius can be got out of the way. The eunuchs 
are favourable to his plans ; they persuade Valentinian that 
Aetius is designing a revolution. With Valentinian the power 
and merit of Aetius is enough of itself to make him believe 
the charge. He kills Aetius, and a nameless Eoman makes 
the sharp saying which has been already quoted +. 

The story about the wife of Maximus must be examined on 
its own grounds, apart from that of the death of Aetius. I am 
strongly inclined to think that it sprang, in the strange way 
in which such stories often do spring, out of the unwilling 
marriage of Eudoxia to Maximus. But Idatius, who has 
nothing to say about the wife of Maximus, distinctly charges 
Maximus with a hand in the death of Aetius ; and Marcellinus, 
who also knows nothing of the legend, either follows Idatius 
or repeats the same story from another quarter. It is therefore 
no part of the legend, but an independent statement, true or 

* "Aetio et Studio coss. Aetius magna occidentalis reipublicae salus 
et regi Attilae terror, a Valentiniano imp. cum Boetio amico in palatio 
trucidatur, atque cum ipso Hesperium cecidit regnum, nee hactenus 
valuit relevari." 

\ Bell. Vand. i. 4 (p. 329) ; ttipiwhwoi roivw 6 Md^i/jioi toTs ^v/jmeffovai 
yevo/xevos avriKa jxkv Is em^ovKrjv tov fiaaiXiais KaOiffraTO, us Se tov 'h-iriov 
iwpa /xiya Svvafxevov . . . kvOvfiiov ot kyivero ias ol 'Aerios el ra ■ttpaffaojj.eva 
I/X7ro5ioy effTac' Tavrd re Siavoovf^ivqi afxeivov 'iSo^ev elvai tov 'Aertov kiciTotwv 
iroiTjcraaOai Trporepov, ovSev notrjcrap.evq) on fs avrov TrepteffrrjKe iraaa f) 'Pwjxaiuv 
(\ms. rSiv Se a/x^l t^v ^affikiais Oepaireiav evvovx^f evvocKuis ol l^oi'Ta;!' dveireKTe 
Tats avTwv fJiT]xa.vais ^aaiXia ais veaiTepots vpayfiaaiv eyxeipoir] 'Aerios, OiiaXev- 
TiviavQS Se dWco oiiSevt on fjif) ttJ 'Aeriov dvvdixei re ical dper^ TfiCfxrjpiucras tov 
Xi'yov vyid eTvai Kreivei rbv dvSpa. 

X See above, p. 59, note *, 



368 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

false, which has been incorporated in the legend. We have no 
means of either confirming or refuting the account of Idatius ; 
it simply comes under the general rule that secret intrigues 
are for the most part probable but not proved. The intrigue, 
if it happened, must have been very secret, for, if we accept 
the plain statement of Prosper, the friends of Aetius knew 
that the eunuch Heraclius had been the enemy of their chief, 
but had no suspicion of Maximus. Valentinian, he tells us, 
was so unwise that he took the friends and military attendants 
of Aetius into his service. They watched their opportunity, 
and slew both him and Heraclius at some point outside the 
city. No one of all the imperial following stirred to defend 
or to avenge them *. The possible compHcity of Maximus in 
the deed is darkly hinted at a little later, when it is said that, 
on assuming the empire, he took the slayers of Valentinian 
into his favour f. 

Idatius is shorter ; but he adds that the slayers were, as we 
might have expected, barbarian followers of Aetius. He calls 
the place where Valentinian was killed campus, and adds that 
the army was standing around +. The Campus Martius was 
within the walls of Aurelian, but as being still an open place 
used for exercises, it might be laxly spoken of as outside the 
city. The very short account in another version of Prosper 
gives the spot a name — the Two Laurels §. Marcellinus, as we 



* "Mortem Aetii mors Valentiniani non longo post temipore consecuta 
est, tarn imprudenter non declinata ut interfeeti Aetii amicos armigerosque 
ejus sibimet consociaret. Qui concepti facinoris opportunitatem aueu- 
pantes, egressum. extra Urbem prineipem et ludo gestationis intentum 
inopinatis ictibus confoderimt, Heraclio simul, ut erat proximus, intef- 
empto, et nuUo ex multitudine regia ad ultionem tanti sceleris accenso." 
See Ducange in " Gestatio." 

•\ See above, p. 366, note §. 

% " Quarto regni anno principis Marciani per duos barbaros Aetii 
familiares Valentinianus Eomse imperator occiditur in campo exercitu 
eircumstante." 

§ Prosperi Chron. ex MS. August. Eoncalli, 701. " Aetio et Studio, 
Eo anno occisi sunt Aetius et Boetius Patricii. Valentiniano VIII et 
Anthemio. Valentinianus ipse occisus ad duas lauros XVII Kal. Apr." 
So Chron. Pasch. i. 591 ; tovt^ toi erei i<T<pd'y7] OvaKevTiviavbs Av-y ovcrros kv 
'Pujfjfrj fjikaov Si5o Sacpvwy. 



Appendix I. 369 

have seen, asserts the complicity of Maximus in the death of 
Valentinian ; he also gives the slayers the barbarian names 
of Optila and Transtila*. On the whole it is enough to say 
that Valentinian was slain by men of Aetius who wished to 
avenge the blood of their lord. That is plain. Maximus may 
have had some hand in setting them on at some particular 
time or in some particular way. If so, he was only the 
occasion and not the cause. Men who had shared the glories 
of Aetius and who mourned for his murder, had motive enough 
to act as the avengers of his blood ; they had a strong enough 
fmlide against his murderer, whether an ambitious consular and 
patrician took advantage of their disposition or not. 

And so we end the story of Aetius, as we have some years 
before ended the story of his supposed rival. To Aetius four 
times consul the Britons might have sent up yet heavier 
groans than they sent when he bore the fasces for the third 
time. Before he had beaten back the Hun, the tale of the 
second England had begun. The rest of the world seems to 
have been but slightly stirred in the year when the Jutish 
eald'ormen landed at Ebbsfleet, never to fall back. But what 
mattered the sufferings of Kent when the Hun was arming 
against Europe ? Six years later, Theodoric, Attila, Aetius, 
have all passed away; Valentinian dies by an irregular ven- 
geance for his crimes. In the same year, of the two Teutonic 
Jieretogan who had begun the Making of England, one dies in 
fight with the Briton, the other becomes the first Teutonic 
king on British soil. In the consulship of Valentinian and 
Anthemius, we turn from Aquitanian Prosper and Spanish 



* '' Valentinianus princeps dolo Maximi patricii, cujus etiam fraude 
Aetius perierat, in campo Martio per Optilam at Transtilam Aetii satel- 
lites, jam percusso Heraclio spadone, truncatus est." So Jordanis, Getica, 
45. "We get a little nearer to one of the slayers in Gregory of Tours, ii. 8 
(ad fin.) ; " Adultus Valentinianus imperator metuens ne se per tyran- 
nidem Aetius opprimeret, eum nuUis causis extantibus interimit. Ipse 
postmodum Augustus dum in campo Martio pro tribunali resedens con- 
cionaretur ad populum, Occila buccellarius Aetii adversum veniens eum 
gladio perfodit. Talis utrisque extitit finis." This, according to Holder- 
Egger, comes from the lost annals of Eavenna. 

B b 



370 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

Idatius to our own tale in our own tongue: *'An. cccclv. 
Her Hengest and Horsa gefuhton wiS Wyrtgeorne J^seni 
cyninge on ]?sere stowe ]3e is gecweden ^glesprop ; and his 
broSor Horsan man ]?8er ofsloh, and setter ]?8em feng to rice 
Hengest and jEsc his sunu." 



APPENDIX II. 

THE SECOND CARAUSIUS. 

Mr. Arthur J. Evans, in the Numismatic Chronicle, vii,, 
3rd series, pp. 191-219, has given reasons for the existence 
of a Second Carausius of the fifth century. A bronze coin was 
found at Eichborough, with the inscription on the obverse, 
about the Emperor's diademed and be-cloaked bust, to be read : 
DOMINO CAEAVSIO CES*; and on the reverse, about the 
Emperor with phoenix and labarum standard at the vessel's 
prow steered by Victory, an inscription to be read : DOMIN[0] 
CONXTA[NTIJNO. These particulars would fix its prototype 
between 340 and 350 a. d. "Evidently it records a maritime 
expedition ... it must refer to Constans' passage to Britain 
in 343, in answer to the appeal of the hard-pressed provincials 
— one of the most important episodes of his reign, as may be 
gathered from the reference to it in the later books of Am- 
mianus Marcellinus " ; to wit, xx. 1. 1 ; xxvii. 8. 4. But the 
coin itself must be, Mr. Evans thinks, of considerably later 
date ; the ligatures, form of letters S and E, and style of legend, 
compare with the well-known Christian Penmachur inscription, 
CAEAVSIVS HIG lACIT IN HOC CONGEEIES LAPI- 
DVM, and also with the Eavenhill inscription, which is dated 
by its reference to Justinian, Constantino's officer, the com- 
panion in arms, as we have seen, of Nebiogast (Zosimus, vi.), 
and the victim of Stilicho's general Sarus. The Justinian 

* I have marked the ligatures by a line above the letters linked 
together. 

B b 2 



372 Western Europe in the Fifth Century. 

inscription would seem to date from a short time before 407, 
and is read : IVSTINIANVS PP VINDICIANVS MA[E]- 
BITEEIV (or MAGISTEEIV) PE M CASTEVM FECIT 
A[NN]0 . . . Hence Mr. Evans would refer this Carausius 
coin to the year 409. " The association of our Carausius with 
the British Constantino indicated by the present coin, may at 
least be taken as evidence that the new Caesar stood foi-th as 
the representative of the interests of the Constantinian dynasty 
in the island as against the faction of the rebel Gerontius and 
his barbarian allies. It is not unlikely even that he belonged 
to the same family as Constantino III. The probability that 
the later Eomano-British princes, Ambrosius Aurelianus, Con- 
stantino of Damnonia, Aurelius Conan, and others, traced their 
descent from the third Constantino, has already been shown by 
Dr. Guest." Cf. Gildas, Hist. xxv. Origines Celticse, ii. 172. 
There is much else in Mr. Evans' paper that is of interest, 
especially where he considers the use of 'Rex, Dux, and Con- 
ventus, va. fifth-century Britain. He has an excellent page 
upon the ** titular authority" of the Eoman emperors after 
the overthrow of the direct imperial government in Britain 
in 409, and the ''sentimental veneration" with which they 
were regarded down to Gildas' days. ' ' Honorius, by his letters 
to the cities of Britain, was careful to legalize the new state of 
things, and the very instrument that abrogated the direct 
government of his officials still asserted his dominion. The 
embassy of the Britons to the Consul Aetius implied the recog- 
nition of his titular sovereign, the Emperor Valentinian III. 
The mission of St. Germanus was itself a rehabilitation of the 
spiritual sway of Eome, as against the incursions of Celtic 
heterodoxy ; and the Sjmod of Verulamium was, from every 
point of view, a re-cementing of the ties that still bound 
Britain to the Eespiiblica Bomana." The British prince Eio- 
timus*, Rex Britonuni, as Jordanis calls him, cheerfully 
helped the Emperor Anthemios against Euric and his Wisi- 

* This is the king "Eiens" or Eyence, of North Wales, and of all 
Ireland and of many Isles, the giant monarch whose mantle was purple 
with the beards of eleven subject kings, the foe of Arthur, the captiTe of 
Balin and Balan. Malory, Mort Arthiir, i. cap. xxxiv. 



Appendix II. 373 

goths in Gaul in 470. Cf. Grregory of Tours, ii. 19. Gildas 
himself (De Excidio, xiii.) is furious against the British emperor, 
Magnus Maximus, who had dared to rise against "his lords, 
the two legitimate emperors." 

Professor Khjs has shown that the name Carausius has left 
its traces in place-names and legends in Britain. Nennius 
(Hist. Brit, xxiii. p. 165) makes hitn a perfect British Balbus. 



INDEX 



-iEgidius, subject of Marjorian, 

258. 
preserves Eoman power at 

Soissons and Paris, 258. 
father of Syagrius, 260. 
Aetius, marries wife of royal 

Gothic blood, 272. 
goes to Gaul as officer of 

Valentinian, 274. 
induces Huns to return 

home, 274. 
brings help for John from 

the Huns, 274. 
his warfare with Theodoric, 

cf. note, 276. 
attack on Theodoric before 

Aries, 281. 
gains second victory over 

Goths, near Aries, 283. 
third consulship, 305. 
foresees approach of Attila, 

.307- 
his relations with Theodoric, 

308. 
friend of the Huns, 308. 
adviser of Placidia, 308. 
rival of Boniface, 308. 
keeps his place by help of 

Huns, 309. 
son of Gaudentius, 317. 
hostage with Alaric, 318 ; 

with the Huns, 318. 
wife of, a saintly matron, 

319- 
praefect of Constantinople, 

320. 
enters service of Placidia, 

325- 



Aetius, the Huns fight against 

Valentinian, 325. 
supposed connexion with 

fall of Boniface, 332. 
magister militum, 341. 
and Boniface, an account 

of theii- duel, 347, 348. 
flees to Eugila, 352. 
restored to favour, 352. 
attempt on his wife, 353. 
flees to Eome, 353. 
goes to Dalmatia, 354. 
his peace with the Huns, 

355- 

supplies Attila with a Moor- 
ish jester, 355. 

summary of his character, 

358. 
seeks empire for his son 
Gaudentius, 365. 
Agathokles, first to assume 

title of Tyrant, 84. 
Agen, in hands of West-Goths, 

238. 
Agrsetius, an Avernian noble, 

slain, 189. 
Alans, kingdom in Spain, 20. 
take part in invasion of 

Gaul, 20. 
settle in Lusitania, 141. 
settle at New Carthage, 141. 
army of, weary of Gothic 

alliance, 194. 
their dominion in Spain, 

232. 
commend themselves to 
Vandal King Guntheric, 
232. 



376 



Index 



Alaric, his coining, the cause 
of the loss of Britain, 

17- 
to be sent against Constan- 
tino, 59. 
besieges Eome, 89. 
intended to cross over to 
Sicily, 228. 
Alamannian land, borders of, 
299. 
war, the second, unrecorded, 
299. 
Alamans, their new settle- 
ments, 301. 
Allobich, commands Eoman 
cavalry, 90. 
murdered, 93. 
Angles and Saxons, form part 
of the Wandering of the 
Nations, 36. 
Angouleme, in the hands of 

the West-Goths, 238. 
Apollinaris, goes with Con- 
stans to Spain, 76. 
deposition of, 96. 
Ardaburius and Aspar, help 
Valentinian against John, 

324- 
Argentoratum, Nether-Dutch 

Strateburg, 37. 
Aries, Arelate, Constantino 

reigns there, 55. 
crown of, 56. 

besieged by Gerontius, 108. 
topography of, 109. 
stat'io navmm, 109. 
captured by Constantino, 

121. 
account of, 255. 
supplants Trier, 256. 
head of land south of Loire, 

256. 
besieged by King of West- 
Goths, 276. 
Armorica, its original extent, 

167. 



Armorica, probably recovered 
for Eome by the sword of 
Wallia, 248. 

Aspar, assists Boniface and 
raises siege of Hippo, 

.336- 
mission to Africa, 341. 
Asterius, the Eoman count, 
leads Vandals in Bsetica, 

235- 
Atawulf, accession changes 
relations of Eomans and 
barbarians in Italy, 131. 

promises heads of Jovinus 
and Sebastian to Hono- 
rius, 184. 

estimate of his view of the 
rule of Eome, 178. 

passes into Spain, 215. 

counsels peace to the Goths, 
220. 

how his history was pre- 
served, 227. 
Atax, the Alan king, over- 
thrown by Wallia, 232. 
Attains, counsellor to Atawulf, 
180. 

emperor in Gaul, 201. 

sent to Honorius as a peace- 
offering, 216. 

adorns triumph of Hono- 
rius, 216. 

exiled to Lipari Isles, 217. 
Augusta Trevirorum, see 

Trier, sacked, 29. 
Augustine, St., his letters to 

Boniface, 327. 
Avie4ius, embassy of, 363. 
Avitus, proclaimed at Tou- 
louse, 254. 

of Auvergne, 284. 

smites a wild boar, 285. 

his studies of Cicero, 285. 

obtains remission of taxes 
for Auvergne, 285. 

goes to see Theodosius, 286. 



Index 



377 



Avitus, Theodoric tries to win 


Bourdeaux, plundered and 


him, 286. 


burnt by Goths, 207. 


the new Fabricius, 286. 


in the hands of the West 




Goths, 238. 


Bseda, on separation of Britain, 


Bret-wealas, join Eum-wealas 


II. 


against Goths and Saxons, 


Bagaudse, Sarus gives them 


. ^47- 


the spoil taken from Jus- 


Britain, supposed unsuccess- 


tinian, 64. 


ful invasion of, by bar- 


Barbarians, ravage Gaul, 134. 


barians in Gaul, 146. 


settle down in Spain, 134. 


withdrawal of Eoman 


Barcelona, infant Theodosius 


legions, 149. 


dies and is buried at, 219. 


embassies from, 150. 


Bayeaux, a Saxon city, 5. 


Gildas' account of persecu- 


Belisarius, consul, 306. 


tions in, 151. 


Bellerid, officer of Sarus, slain. 


Zozimos' account of, 153. 


182. 


Procopius on loss of, 153. 


Bleda, succeeds Eugila as king 


Pelagian heresy in, 156. 


of Huns, 352. 


mission of Germanus and 


Boetius, friend of Aetius, 


Lupus to, 157. 


killed, 366. 


brought under power of 


Boniface, ecclesiastical side of. 


Saxons, 158. 


310. 


Belisarius offers to ex- 


Procopius' account of, 311. 


change, 159. 


relieves Massilia from siege 


Prankish kings claim over- 


of Atawulf, 314. 


lordship, 160. 


avenges injured soldier, 


rise of Gallic, 162. 


316. 


early and brief independence 


marries Pelagia, 328. 


of lesser, 168. 


possible visit to Spain, 329. 


British people, freedom ne- 


regarded as a foe at Eavenna, 


cessary to growth of 


331- 


English in Britain, 148. 


magister militum, 344. 


Britons, not spoken of as 


contends with Aetius at 


Eomans, 155. 


Eavenna, 344. 


never became Eomans in 


dies of disease, 344. 


speech or habits, 155. 


and Aetius, an account of 


groans of, toAetius,i56,305. 


their duel, 347, 348. 


on the Loire, 164. 


summary of his character, 


the continental, friends of 


357- 


Eome, 247. 


Bononia, Boulogne, landing- 


and Saxons, their doings in 


place of Constantine, 48, 


Gaul only secondary, 267. 


49. 


Burgundians, earlier inde- 


Bourdeaux, or Bordeaux, 


pendence in Gaul, 172. 


Goths enter peacefully, 


no settlement in Gaul be- 


197. 


fore fifth century, 174. 



378 



Index 



Burgundians, settlement under 


Chlodowig, conversion of, 291. 


Gunthachar, 176. 


Avitus of Vienne congratu- 


the first Teutonic settle- 


lates him, 291. 


ment in Gaul, 176. 


calls on the God of his wife 


orthodox Christians, 192. 


at Ziilpich, 296. 


Burgundy, on the middle 


battle with Alamans be- 


Ehine, 173. 


tween Toul and the Ehine, 


kingdom of, on western 


298. 


border of the Ehine, 190. 


marches back to Eheims, 




298. 


Cahors, in hands of West- 


Chrotechild, wife of Chlodowig, 


Goths, 239. 


her influence, 291. 


Candidianus, influence of, 198. 


wooed by Chlodowig, 295. 


Carausius II, evidence for his 


Claudian, hexameters of, 9. 


existence, 371. 


poems of, 15. 


Carpilio, son of Aetius, 319. 


Cruelty, marked fault of 


Cassiodorus, the elder, prefect 


Saxons according to Sal- 


at Kome, 299. 


vianus, 138. 


the younger, writes in name 


Constans, son of Constantino, 


of Theodoric, 299. 


57- 


Castinus, takes Eoman force 


sent by Constantino to put 


against Vandals in Spain, 


down rising in Spain, 75. 


235. 


raised to rank of Augustus, 


retires on Tarragona, 235. 


92. 


fails in Spain, 235, 315. 


flees from Gaul, 103. 


enemy of Boniface, 309. 


put to death by Gerontius, 


commands expedition to 


108. 


Spain, 314. 


Constantino, colleague of 


banished, 326. 


Honorius, 30. 


Celtic corner of Gaul more 


elected by legions in Britain, 


than survival of a people. 


47- 


144. 


carries legions to Gaul, 48. 


Chariobaudes, flight of, 50. 


lands at Bononia, 48. 


represents Honorius in 


guards the Ehine, 52. 


Gaul, 50. 


his firm guarding of the 


slaughter of, 60. 


Ehine frontier, 52. 


Chastity of Teutonic nations, 


dominions in Gaul, 53. 


139- 


restores Trier, 53. 


Chilperic and Guntchramn, 


reigns at Arelate, 55. 


tale of, 292. 


firmly established in S.E. 


Chlodowig, an officer of Zeno, 


Gaul, 65. 


37- 


campaign in Spain, 68, 69. 


Chlodowig, did he enter Paris 


ruler of Spain, 79. 


to chastise tyrant ? 260. 


the Tyrant, meaning of 


master of Soissons, 288. 


title, 82. 


displaces Syagrius, 288. 


demands of Honorius the 



Index 



379 



rank of third Augustus, 

87. 
Constantine, sends embassy to 

Eavenna, 87. 
enters Italy, 91. 
raises his son Constans to 

rank of Augustus, 92. 
turned back at Verona, 94. 
at Aries, 106. 
takes sanctuary, 121. 
is made presbyter, 121. 
sent prisoner to Eavenna, 

122. 
beheaded, 122. 
head set up at Carthage, 127. 
power reached only to Trier, 

1 73-. 
Constantius, born at Nai'ssus, 
III. 
cuts off ears of Olympius, 112. 
drives Atawulf from Gaul, 

206. 
taught the Goth that the 
Eoman could strike, 268. 
saves Eoman power in Gaul, 
268. 
Curius, consul, 356. 

Dardanus, estimate of his 
character, 180. 
with Atawulf before Va- 
lentia, 186. 
Darius, the Count, makes 
peace between Boniface 
and Eavenna, 340. 
Demosthenes, his errand to 

Thebes, 360. 
Didymus, kinsman of Hono- 
rius in Spain, 70. 
resists Constantine, 70. 
captured by Constans, 77. 
put to death by Constantine, 
78. 
Dombrowka, of Poland, refer- 
ence to, 292. 
Dubius, murders Atawulf, 219. 



Ecdicius, carries head of 
Edobich to Constantine, 
120. 
Edobich, general of Constan- 
tine, 63. 
collects Alamans, 105. 
brings barbarians to relief 
of Constantine in Aries, 
118. 
defeated outside Aries by 

Constantius, 119. 
flees for refuge to Ecdicius, 

120. 
murdered by Ecdicius, 120. 
Einhard, story of Britons flee- 
ing to Gaul, 164. 
English envoys to court of 

Justinian, 160. 
Eoforwulf, annoyed by Ata- 
wulf 's gibes, 219. 
Eormengild, revolt of, 305, 
Ermeric, chief of Suevians, 

135- 

Euplutius, Eoman envoy to 
Wallia, 229. 

Euric, drives Britons from 
land of Bituriges, 164. 
the West-Goth, 255. 

Eusebia, inscription on her 
tomb at Trier suggests 
consulship of Constantius 
and Honorius, 92. 

Eusebius, the eunuch, cham- 
berlain of Honorius, 90. 

Exsuperantius, restores Ar- 
morica to the Empire, 
168. 
of Poitiers, 273. 
asserts claim of Theodosian 
house, 273. 

Famine in Spain, owing to 
barbarian ravages, 136. 

Fauriel, Histoire 2. 

Felix, magister militum, 283, 
326. 



380 



Index 



Felix, enemy of Boniface, 309. 

killed by order of Aetius 

at Eavenna, 309, 342, 

343.. 
Placidia's minister at Ea- 
venna, 337. 
Frank, the heathen, contrasted 
with the Arian Goth, 290. 
Franks, Vandals attempt to 
stop their invasion of 
Gaul, 28. 
overthrown by the Alan 

Eespendial, 28. 
the Nether-Dutch speech of, 

36. 
still heathen, 246. 
their wars with Alamans, 
296. 
Frederic, puts down the Ba- 

gaudsB, 363. 
Frigeridus, Eenatus Profutu- 
rus, quoted by Gregory of 
Tours, 7. 
Frithbald, Vandal king in 
Spain, 233. 
sent as trophy to Honorius, 
233- 

Gaiseric, was he invited by 
Boniface? 333. 
real story concerning him, 
338. 
Galba, besieges Boniface, 332. 
Gaudentius, account of, 318. 
father of Aetius, 320. 
slain in Gaul, 320. 
count and magister militum, 
320. 
Gaudentius II, son of Aetius, 

319- 
Gaul, date of Teutonic inva- 
sion of, 19. 

not invaded by remnants of 
army of Eadagaisus, 22. 

ravaged by Saxons, 35. 

comparison of conquest by 



Franks with that of 
Britain by English, 148. 
Gaul, occupied by Goths, Huns, 
and Vandals, and still 
under Eoman rule, 247. 
causes of abiding differences 
between North and South, 
251. 
historic light of, helps us to 
pierce darkness of Britain, 
267. 
Gellius Egnatius, his errand 

to Etruria, 360, 
Germans, of the sea, 38. 
Gerontius, general of Constan- 
tino, 63. 
same as British Gerent, 64. 
goes with Constans to Spain, 

74. 
leagues with barbarians, 97. 
divides Spain, 98. 
sets up Maximus, his son, 

as Tyrant, 100. 
advances against Constans, 

105. 
his army goes over to Con- 

stantius, 115. 
flees to Spain, 1 15. 
besieged by his troops in 

Spain, 123. 
commits suicide, 125. 
Goar, the Alan king, helps 

Jovinus at Mainz, 172. 
and Alans join and help 

the Eomans, 174. 
protect Bazas from Goths, 

213. 
Godegisl, Vandal king, killed, 

28. 
Goth, a, sends payment to 

Paulinus for lands he 

occupied, 244. 
his conquests cut off Eoman 

central Gaul, 257. 
Gothic people to settle on the 

Garonne, 234, 236. 



Index 



381 



Gothic Aquitaine did not take 


Harold and Tostig, compared 


in whole of the first Aqui- 


with Boniface and Aetius, 


taine, 240. 


312. 


West G. kingdom, first 


Helvetia, parts of, settled by 


Teutonic power in Gaul, 


Alamans, 301. 


245- 


Heraclian, the slayer of Stili- 


conquest of Gaul rooted out 


cho, 184. 


traces of earlier speech. 


asserts independence in 


253- 


Africa, 184. 


Goths, appearances in Gaul, 


Heraclius, the eunuch, the 


172. 


enemy of Aetius, 368. 


the West, enter Gaul under 


Heros, bishop of Aries, 282. 


Atawulf, 174. 


his deposition, 282. 


at war with Komans in 


partisan of Constantino, 283. 


S. Gaul, 196. 


Honoria, daughter of Placidia, 


settle in Aquitaine at cost 


is wooed by Attila, 223. 


of Eomans, 243. 


Honorians, name of Constans' 


the chaste, come to cleanse 


soldiers, 75. 


Aquitaine, 243. 


Honorius, laws of, 24. 


and Eomans, friendship lasts 


his laws may refer to inva- 


during reign of Wallia, 


sion of Gaul, cf. note, 24. 


249. 


underinfluence of Olympius, 


and Empire, formal peace 


60. 


between, 284. 


acknowledges Constantino, 


cleave to teaching of their 


88. 


first apostle, 289. 


sends Constantino a purple 


engage to win back Spain to 


robe, 88. 


Empire, 330. 


consulship with Constan- 


Gratian, elected Tyrant by 


tino, 92. 


legions in Britain, 46. 


letters to cities of Britain, 


death of the British, 46. 


148. 


Gregory of Tours on Stilicho, 


sends Placidia to Constan- 


27. 


tinople, 322. 


his reference to Britons in 




Gaul, 104. 


Idatius, the Spaniard, his 


Guntchramn and Chilperic, 


chronicle, 8. 


tale of, 292. 


and Prosper, comparison of 


Gunthachar, the Burgundian, 


their story of Aetius, 352. 


172, 174. 


Ingenuus, house of, scene of 


a lieutenant of the Empire, 


Placidia's wedding, 199. 


191. 
his name in Epic of Mbel- 


Jagello, of Lithuania, 292. 


ungs, 193. 


Jerome, letter to Ageruchia, 


ally of Jovinus, 248. 


21. 


Guntheric, master of New 


hears of Atawulf from sol- 


Carthage and Seville, 236. 


dier of Narbonne, 177. 



382 



Index 



John, leaves Exsuperantius 

unavenged, 273. 
chosen peaceably at Ea- 

venna, 273, 322. 
executed at Aquileia, 274, 

324- 
John Tzimiskes, first emperor 

of that name, 324. 
Jovinus, assumes purple at 
Mainz, 172. 
acknowledged by Atawulf, 

180. 
taken captive at Narbonne, 

187. 
slain by Dardanus, 188. 
Jovius, takes to Eavenna the 
message of Constantino, 
88. 
promises aid of Constantine, 

89. 
allowed to return to Aries, 
89. 
Julian, son of Constantine, 56. 
sent prisoner to Eavenna, 

121. 
beheaded by order of Hono- 

rius, 122. 
the Nobilissimus, 122. 
head set up at Carthage, 
127. 
JuKus Nepos, gives way to 

Odowaker, 257-8. 
Justin, general of Constantine, 

.49- 
Justinian, falls in battle, 63. 

officer of Constantine, 371. 

Justus, a general of Constans, 

96. 

Kyriakos, attempts the life of 
Aetius, 320. 

Lagodius, kinsman of Hono- 
rius, 70. 
flees to Constantinople, 78. 
Laurels, the Two, scene of 



the murder of Aetius, 

368. 
Legions in Britain choose an 

Emperor, 44. 
Limenius, represents Hono- 

rius in Gaul, 50. 
flight of, 50. 
slaughter of, 60. 
Loire, no Frenchman south 

of, 253. 

Mainz, Moguntiacum, stormed, 

30. 
Malmesbury, William of, his 

use of word tyrant, 82. 
Marcus, chosen Tyrant by 
legions in Britain, 44. 
date of his election, 45. 
slain, 46. 
Margaret, the English, reforms 
the Scotch Malcolm, 295. 
Marseilles, Massalia, Massilia, 
bound up with fate of 
Constantine, 54. 
Atawulf repulsed at, 197. 
saved by Count Boniface, 

197. 
besieged by Atawulf, 314. 
Mavortius, besieges Boniface, 

.33?- 

Maximin, chosen by Gerontius 
as Tyrant, 99. 
who was he? 100. 
holds court at Tarragona, 

lOI. 

ceases to reign, 128. 
flees to barbarian friends, 
128. 
Montmajour, the hill of, 280. 
Mussulman, parted from 
Christian by his nearness, 
293- 

Nadders, hill of, 280. 
Narbonne, suggested head- 
quarters of Constans, 106. 



Index 



383 



Narbonne, entered by Gothic 

army, i86. 
disruption of, 187. 
in hands of the West-Goths, 

240. 
Nebiogast, or Neobigast, a 

general of Constantine, 49. 
in command of Roman 

legions leaving Britain, 

49. 
deals with Sarus, 63. 
is murdered, 63. 
companion of Justinian, 

371- 

Nounechia, wife of Gerontius, 
put to death by Geron- 
tius, 125. 

Novempopulania, land of, the 
fairest in Gaul, 241. 

Olympiodoros' History, 7. 
Olympius, intrigues against 

Stilicho, 60. 
Optila, slayer of Aetius, 369. 
Orosius' History, 11, 20, 22, 

25- 
hears the story told to Je- 
rome at Bethlehem, 177. 

Patria, new meaning of, 25. 
Patroclus, bishop of Aries, 282. 
killed at the bidding of 
Felix, 283. 
Paulinus of Pella, 201, 244. 
lives at Bourdeaux, 204. 
count of the largesse to 

Attalus, 205. 
flees to Bazas, 209. 
appeals to Goar, 211. 
in exile in Marseilles, 244. 
his land coveted by Goths, 
244. 
Pelagia, wife of Boniface, his 

last advice to her, 350. 
Penmachur, inscription, 371. 
Petronius Maximus, his com- 



plicity in the death of 
Aetius, 367. 
Placidia, the aspirants for her 
hand, 177. 
bears a son to Atawulf at 

Barcelona, 215. 
insulted by Sigeric, 221. 
sent honourably to Hono- 

rius, 222. 
Honoria, daughter of, 223. 
Poictiers, in kingdom of 

Arian Goth, 237. 
PoUentia, fight of, 13, 17. 
victory won by Romans 
through denudation of 
frontiers, 18. 
Possidius, besieged at Hippo, 

338. 
Procopius, his strange story 

of Anglian migration, 161. 
story of Britons fleeing to 

Gaul, 164. 
his account of John, 322. 
his account of entry of 

Vandals into Africa, 

334- 
Prosper of Aquitaine, his 
chronicle, 8, 22. 
his account of entry of 
Vandals into Africa, 334. 
and Idatius, comparison of 
their story of Aetius, 352. 
Prosper Tiro, his mention of 
afiairs in Britain, 9. 

Radagaisus, ally of Alaric, 13. 

the hosts of, 29. 
Renatus Frigeridus, quoted by 

Gregory of Tours, 7. 
Respendial, the Alan King, 

helps the Vandals, 28. 
Respublica Romana, meaning 

of, 306. 
Rhsetia, defenders of, 18. 
Rhenish frontier, power of 

Rome on, 14. 



384 



Index 



Ehodez, in kingdom of the 

West-Goth, 239. 
Riotimus, British king in 

Gaul, 166, 372. 
helps Emperor Anthemius, 

373- 
Eoman Gaul, its view of 

heathen Chlodowig, 290. 
Eoman power in Britain, end 

of, 48. 
Eomania, good luck of, 102. 
Eomans, of Aquitaine, their 

evil character, 242. 
give' hostages to Goth, 284. 
Eugila, death of, 352. 
Eusticus, Decimius, Master of 

the Offices, 96. 
flees to Constantinople, 1 03. 
slain, 189. 
Eutilius Namatianus, enemy 

of Stilicho, 26. 

Saintes, in hands of West- 
Goths, 238. 

Sallustius, brother of Jovinus, 
slain, 189. 

Salona, sea of Long, 279. 

Salvian, his writings offer help 
in history of period, 9. 
on the four sacks of Eome, 

195: 
on richness of land of 

Aquitaine, 241. 
Sarus, sent to Gaul by Stilicho, 

61. 
gains victory over Justinian, 

61. 
escapes to Italy, 64. 
marches against Constan- 

tine, no. 
the Goth, his deadly feud 

with Atawulf, 182. 
renounces Honorius and 

joins Jovinus, 183. 
killed by soldiers of Ata- 
wulf, 183. 



Saxon settlements in Britain 
and Gaul contrasted, 43. 
Saxony, in Gaul, 5. 

in Britain, 5. 
Saxons, possible invasion of 

Gaul by, 33. 
Scipio, consul, 306. 
Sebastian, associated in impe- 
rial dignity by Jovinus, 
184. 
head sent to Honorius, 186. 
goes from Spain to Africa, 

350. 
son-in-law of Boniface, 351. 
flees to Constantinople, 351. 
Seville, passes permanently 
from Eoman power, 236. 
Sidonius, his account of Saxon 
sea-rovers, 40. 
ej)itaj)h on his grandfather 
Apollinaris, 76. 
Sigeberht, king, wounded at 

Ziilpich, 296. 
Sigeric, brother of Sarus, 
hailed king by West- 
Goths, 221. 
slaughters children of Ata- 
wulf, 222. 
murdered, 222. 
Sigesar, bishop, deprived of 

Atawulf 's children, 222. 
Sigisvult, the Goth, 323. 
carries on war against Boni- 
face, 333. 
Silingi, settle in Bsetica, 141. 
Sinox, plots against Mavortius, 

333- 
plots against Boniface, 333. 

put to death by Boniface, 

333- 
Sira, said in legend to have 

converted Chosroes, 295. 
Spain, untouched by strangei'S 

since days of Gallienus, 66. 
Spain, small part affected by 

claims of Honorius, 133. 



Index 



385 



Spain, settlements of the na- 


Theodoric, contrasted with 


tions in, 232. 


Chlodowig, 303. 


Spanish legions demand with- 


Theodosian family, their rustic 


drawal of Honorians, 95. 


army in Spain, 72. 


Stilicho, restores Eoman power 


routed, 77. 


on banks of Ehine, 14. 


Theodosiolus, a kinsman of 


cuts off the followers of 


Honorius, 70. 


Eadagaisus, 22. 


flees to Honorius, 78. 


invaders of Gaul invited 


Theodosius, son of Atawulf, 


by, 25. 


dies at Barcelona, 219. 


Eutilius' verses on, 26. 


the infant, his grave Ata- 


Gregory of Tours' mistake 


wulf s sole possession in 


concerning, 27. 


Spain, 263. 


lUyrian campaign, 58. 


takes steps to overthrow 


sends Sarus to Gaul, 61. 


John, 274. 


slain by Heraclian, 184. 


a hostage given to Theo- 


consul, 306. 


doric, 286. 


seeks empire for his son 


Thorismund, slain by Theo- 


Eucherius, 365. 


doric and Frederic, 363. 


Suevians, their kingdom in 


Ticinum, harangue of Hono- 


Spain, 20. 


rius to soldiers at, 60. 


take part in invasion of 


meeting at, 61. 


Gaul, 20. 


Tostig and Harold, contrasted 


settle in Galicia,.i4i. 


with Boniface and Aetius, 


Sulpicius Alexander, quoted 


312. 


by Gregory of Tours, 7. 


Toulouse, spared through 


Syagrius, called king by 


Bishop Exsuperius, 31. 


Gregory of Tours, 259. 


future home of Gothic kings. 


Tarragona, Maximus reigns at. 


197. 
in hands of the West-Goths, 


103. 


240. 


Terouanne, home of Morini, 


Tournay, captured in Teutonic 


3^- . 


invasion, 31. 


Theodolind, the Catholic, wins 


Transtila, slayer of Aetius, 369. 


the Arian Agilulf, 295. 


Trier, sacked by Vandals, 29. 


Theodoric, succeeds Wallia, 


held by Constantine, 53. 


269. 


coins of Constantine struck 


form of name, 269, note. 


there, 53. 


grandson of Alaric, 269. 


sacked by Franks, 195. 


flight from Aries, 281. 


Trigetius, embassy of, 363. 


congratulates Chlodowig, 


Tyrant, general meaning of 


300. 


word, 82-4. 


urges clemency, 300. 




his policy, 302. 


Valence, Valentia, one of the 


his restraint of Chlodowig, 


great fortresses of the 


303- 


land, 62. 



c c 



386 



Index 



Valence, Constantine takes 
_ shelter there, 62. 
siege of, by Sarus, 63. 
Sarus raises siege of, 64. 
Valentinian and Placidia sent 
by Theodosius to dislodge 
John, 324. 
slays Aetius, 365, 
Vandals, their kingdom in 
Spain, 20. 
take part in invasion of 

Gaul, 20. 
of Bsetica, a power in Spain, 

235- 
besiege Boniface in Hippo, 
336. 
Vedast, St., an agent in con- 
version of the Franks, 
297. 
Verenianus, kinsman of Ho- 
^ norius in Spain, 70. 
rises to resist Constantine 

in Spain, 70. 
captm-ed by Constans, 77. 
put to death by Constantine, 
78. 
Vesonna, in hands of West- 

Groths, 238-9. 
Vetto, his mission to Spain, 

„. 27.7- 

Vienne, Constans' head- 
quarters, 105. 

pagan temple at, 107. 

basilica of Avitus at, 107. 

captured by Gerontius, 108. 
Vouziers, site of the miracle 



worked by St. Vedast, 
298. 

Wallia, hailed as king, 222. 
estimate of his character, 

226. 
successor to Atawulf, 227. 
faithful friend of the Em- 
pire, 228. 
proposed to found an empire 

in Africa, 228. 
his fleet shattered, 229. 
listens to Koman envoy 

Euplutius, 229. 
wages war in Spain in name 

of Eome, 234. 
Jordanis' confused account 

of his reign, 249. 
grandfather of Eicimer, 
250. 
Wladislaf, wins Polish crown, 

292. 
Worms, Vaugiones, besieged 

and captured, 31. 
Wulfilas, goes with Constan- 
tius against Constantine, 
.113- 
his ambush at Aries, 119. 

Zaragoza, Caesar Augusta, Con- 
stans places his court 
there, 78. 

Zozimos, History, 22. 

Zozomen, History, 26. 

Zulpich, battle of, 296. 



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